Who is the Monster?
by an-earl
Summary: The 820 years takes its toll on Raizel and Frankenstein. They've never been at odds with each other until now—when their household is threatened by an enemy with a personal grudge. Frankenstein must protect the life he has built with the Noblesse, but he is determined to do it alone. All the while, Dark Spear whispers cruelly. FrankenRai.
1. Secret Admirer

**Disclaimer:** Noblesse belongs to Jeho Son, Kwangsu Lee and line webtoons. I have no affiliation with Noblesse.

The full title for this was going to be one of these lines of this short poem I wrote but it's still too long.

* * *

Who is the monster, under your bed?

Who is the monster, in your stead?

* * *

Prologue: The Vanguard

Once, he was running, always running—not from people but _for_ people—but it didn't make a difference to them. Humanity. They'd forgotten that he was one of them. And he feared the day their taunts became true; he would forget, that he was one of them. And when he was miles away and worlds apart, he stopped running, stopped hiding, and stopped caring.

Because when people—everybody—was after the power in your skin, the knowledge in your brain, you couldn't afford to stand still and care. People were mowed down in front of him, entire legions slaughtered in his name, and he pretended to laugh. He became the madman they wanted to pursue. So that it was only ever him that they pursued.

And that was who he was—someone whose every fight was to the death, and every pact sealed was with his life.

And this was where the story got interesting. The hunted turned around, and became the hunter. He'd risen to a greater height that anybody else ever would; and oh, they accused him of falling further than the devil ever could.

If it mattered to him, he didn't let it show. He was the only one bright enough to know what he was: Humanity's Kingpin. And with all the vast knowledge he had garnered over a lifetime, a long lifetime, he knew what he had to do.

Destroy the nobles.

Mutants didn't just jump out of nowhere, you know? Vampires didn't just ravage villages willy nilly, did they? Everything that went wrong, went wrong because nobles couldn't keep their lofty noses out of our world's business.

So how is this story now? Interesting, didn't I tell you?

One man—alienated by those he hailed to protect against the so-called demigods—who had spread us their disease!

What happens next then? Something that even _I_ didn't even see coming. Everything goes to hell. All because he just had to start caring again, because he liaised with the enemy.

He, who gave everything, to stop forever running.

He, who gave everything, to be at _his_ side.

It's funny? Isn't it?

Just _god-fucking, hilarious._

But it doesn't matter, no, no, it doesn't matter anymore. I'm here now, and I will do this. I'll fix this story where it all went wrong for him. He'd forgotten, alright, he'd forgotten who he was.

He was the vanguard.

 _And I, will fix him._

 _-f_

* * *

Chapter 1

 **Secret Admirer.**

The white package, adorned with a neatly tied black ribbon, sat squarely on his desk—as if someone had lined it up perfectly to the inch with the edges of the table. A crowd of people in white uniforms gathered around the desk, shadowing the package as a red-head bobbed to scrutinise it.

"…Who do you think it's from?"

"Oh my g—Rai, I think you have an admirer!?"

"Holy—open it."

"Waitwaitwait! Look at this thing, we can't make Rai open it now—we're at _school_!" One stressful voice rang above the others. "We should wait for us all to get to the Chairman's place, _and then_ get Rai to open it."

"Ohh." A flurry of nods, all agreeing.

Cadis Etrama di Raizel stood the furthest away from his desk, eyeing the package vacantly.

"Wait….a second…" Ikhan's voice was accusatory. "IS IT YOUR BIRTHDAY? RAI? AND YOU DIDN'T TELL US?!"

The entire gathering spasmed,staring at Rai because— _that was so Rai._

"…. _No."_

"Aw. Alright then."

"Scared me for a second," came Yuna's voice. "I guess, still an admirer huh?"

"I wonder what it is?" A lanky finger tapped the top of the package, _toc, toc, "I wonder if it's expensiiiive!"_ came Shinwoo's excited voice. He lifted up the tag tied under the satiny-black bow, revealing one neatly written word: _Rai._

Suyi sighed, whisking her bag off the floor to knock Shinwoo's side. "Alright, stop touching his present—it's not _yours_. C'mon, do you want seats at the cafeteria or not?"

"Rai? Ramen time then?"

Raizel shifted, the vacancy on his face slowly replaced with a shy smile. "… _Yes_."

" _Whoo_ —leggo!"

"If they're out of chicken I got dibs on shrimp." The Ye Ran students piled out of the room, and Ikhan's voice trailed behind them. "Hurry up, Rai, unless you want to be last in line."

As the last of the footsteps quietened away down the corridor, a boy with his white hair slicked back, flashed a movement with his hand. The door slammed briskly shut, leaving the three nobles in private.

Regis stepped hurriedly to the package, but he didn't touch it like the children had, instead regarding the bowtie on top like a quarantine situation. "What do you think it is? Should I check it isn't dangerous?" His keen eyes scanned the white wrapping, and he scrunched his brow.

"Seira, we can't let an unidentified object get into the house-owner's house."

Regis looked to Seira, drooping when he realised she hadn't moved an inch from the Noblesse's side.

"Is it not safe to assume the gift is from the house-owner?" she asked, eyes respectably lowered.

The Noblesse closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly as the noble children watched: one in reverence, and the other in awe. _Elegant…_

"No," he answered, after a moment, "he will not address me as…Rai."

"Oh…oh yes," Regis thought aloud, a deeply impressed look on his face. "I see…well then, what will you have us do?"

Raizel moved away from the present and the desk. "I think…I would like some ramen."

Seira nodded, following him to the door, and Regis quickly caught up.

On the last moment, Raizel stopped, turned around, and sought their eyes. "Please alert Frankenstein that the children will be coming over today."

"Yes, of course." They dipped their heads in a slight show of respect.

"Thank you."

* * *

They fell onto the couch, the boys' limbs stretched out everywhere while the noble children and the Noblesse sat straight, perfectly poised. The children tossed their plastic bags over the table like spoils to share after a day's conquest, lying idly for a minute or so before they couldn't restrain themselves anymore. They dived for the junk food and, "the Chairman have any fizzy drinks? I _forgoot_ …"

He sat there, perfectly content and always charmed that somehow, he was in the centre of everything—their chatter about school, about life, about important, little-kiddish squabbles, were as precious as each passing moment in this place, in this life, for him. He drank in their stories, watching their exaggerated expressions grow and blank, and even now he was dazzled when they paused, cutting in sometimes to let him speak, let him agree, let him object.

Their annoyance seeped from them and for a while, the world was dark as he concerned over Yuna's broken recorder. He was absolutely engrossed—even though he had no idea what a recorder was and why Shinwoo was blowing into his jumping fingers, pretending to make music.

Their happiness glowed from them—they didn't know, of course, but it veiled him and he glowed with them as well, wallowed in every small victory they did. He smiled as the kind girls lifted out that rectangular piece of cardboard, knowing what coloured pieces each person at this table would choose and wondering, before they'd even set the board game fully out, what colour he should choose and _hmmm._

"Rai, you take forever so pinch me if you don't like green." And murky green became his favourite colour for the day.

Right now, knowing that this life was his life, still awed him; trivial things were the most important things, and he answered when they called him _Rai._ Every time the doorbell rang in that funny tune, _ding dong, ding dong,_ he brightened up an inch more—the doorbell meant people, and people he loved.

"We're back Sir—irrrrrrrrrrrrs," Tao's voice drew out shakily. "And ladies…" he added belatedly, and Raizel watched as Regis patted a hand over his face. He smiled as Tao climbed over the couch, joining Seira and them, and Takeo ambled over to greet him.

"Guys," Tao nodded discretely to _him_ , "the Chairman's still busy organising the parent-teacher conferences for tomorrow, so he'll be back late."

"PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES?!"

He—Raizel—looked up, pausing eating his chocolate pocky stick.

Shinwoo's face had blanched, turning a pasty sheet of white. Ikhan shuffled with a chip packet, and the rustling of plastic was the loudest sound in the room. When his friend was still in his daze, Ikhan flung up an arm, poking a chip once, twice, at his pursed lips, making Suyi giggle.

Raizel nodded, and Takeo retreated to aid of M-21 with the dishes—the ones they'd neglected to do in the morning.

"Ok then. Ok. I always knew this day would come," Shinwoo muttered, before slurping up the chip. Shinwoo swallowed it down like one of his action heroes did a poisoned pill: cold, and resigned to his fate.

Then all of a sudden, he snapped up out of the blue, mildly choking on the chip as Ikhan and Regis watched in disgust. "Dude—chill?"

"Chill? My grades SUCK!"

"…Your grades have always sucked, Shinwoo."

"Yeah, I know, butthatsnot whatI'm tryingto—"

The girls leaned forward now, reeled in by the red head's panic. Yuna was honestly concerned while Su Yi wanted to giggle more.

He sighed frustratedly. "Ahhhhh—I can't ever hang out with Rai again!"

At this, the sloshing in the sink silenced, and Takeo and M-21 turned their heads. _What?_

"What d'you mean, kiddo?" Tao piped up, cracking a chocolate bar between his fingers. "Not like he's going anywhere?" His gaze darted to the head of the table, and when the Sir just blinked, he continued crunching.

"You're not getting it!" Shinwoo exclaimed. "My grades are _garbage_. People with garbage grades have to have a parent-teacher conference with _the chairman_. Our chairman is _Principal Lee_. Principal lee is housing _Rai!"_ he finished, as if it were the most obvious thing ever. Shinwoo crossed his arms, annoyed.

The others just stared at him with blank faces, mouths half-full, holding their food. "And…your point is?" Regis answered, completely unaffected.

"The point _is_ ," he stressed, "that there's no way Principal Lee would let me hang out with Rai anymore!" As he finished, Ikhan shoved another chip in his mouth, and he downed it with a look of worry.

"Well, what you get for not going to the library with me to study," Ikhan mused, not looking at him.

"You mean, what you get for always sleeping in class." Su Yi's voice was matter-of-fact.

"Your noise is very inelegant," Regis finished.

With a roll of his head, Shinwoo made an exaggerated gesture with his arms, and dove back backwards into the couch. "Oh come on! No one's going to help me here? Yuna? Tao-hyung? Regis and Seira?….Rai?"

The dishes started moving behind them again, and the normal rustle of bags resumed. "Wow."

Yuna stifled a laugh before she came to his aid. "Aha! Ok, we were just teasing. The chairman isn't so harsh like that…is he?"

"Teasing?" echoed Regis. Seira shoved a jelly bean in his face. _"Muh—"_

"I dunno…" Shinwoo started. "The Principal's great, but he's still strict with stuff like this— _well duh—he's the Principal._ He'll totally think I'm a bad influence on Rai!" He scrunched up his nose, and everyone could see the exact moment a thought occurred in him. "Am I? A bad influence on Rai? I mean— _you_ study, right?"

Popping open a coke, Tao handed it carefully over—like an offering—to Raizel. When he accepted it quietly, Tao grinned. "Ha—you really can- _should_ chill, Shinwoo. I mean, yeah the Chairman is an uptight-perfectionist-with-uptight-expectations, but hey, not like _you_ have a pay-cheque to cut."

As if Frankenstein had the heart to stop having the kid over to hang with his Master. He'd much sooner bail Shinwoo out of prison, for the express purpose of inviting the Master to internet cafes than cut him off over grades. _Ah—high school kids are cute…Or, maybe that was just normal people?_

He stopped eating when he realised Shinwoo was staring at him, boggled.

"Kay-okay, Um..er….. _Rai…_ " Tao mumbled awkwardly. He was forced to keep up the charade for the kids' sakes, but not sure if he was allowed to use the word,

"uh…just tell him."

Raizel put down his can of fizzy drink as if it were a glass of fine wine, and turned to him with a look— _address me how you wish_ —and then to Shinwoo. "…I don't think the Chairman will impose on you," he said lightly. "…But you _can_ improve on your studies. Regis and Seira can help you."

The nobles looked to each other, then to Tao, and then to Raizel. They nodded once, intently.

"Shinwoo," Raizel spoke slowly, and the dishes behind them quietened a second time. "You have only ever been a positive influence on me." Raizel reached for the can again.

"….Hyuuungs', ajussiiiii—I need you to help me gain favour with the Chairrmann."

The entire table sighed.

* * *

It was late, much later when the doorbell rang again, and the Chairman let himself in.

" _Apologies_ —oh. Hello everyone. Ah, apologies for being so late. Well, late night for everyone, is it?" His attention turned towards the trash-filled table, making him turn away to twitch slightly. "Have you all had dinner?"

"Welcome back Chairman Lee!" Shinwoo exclaimed in a clinical manner.

Ikhan waved a hand off the couch for him. "Hey Chairman, don't worry, we had cup ramen for dinner."

"Cup…ramen… _for dinner_?" Frankenstein skipped Tao, and went straight to eyeing Takeo and M-21 at the kitchen table. They looked away, suddenly very distracted by their fingers, the water tap.

"It was…yum," came a quiet voice. Raizel sipped his coke.

"Alright. Just…it's not healthy to eat cup ramen all the time. Next time you all come over, perhaps you can all politely ask Miss Seira to cook a proper dinner. Or I will," he added thoughtfully, " if I'm here. Excuse me."

He left the room for a while, and when he came back he sat with Takeo and M-21 around the high chairs of the kitchen table.

"Oh—guys, Rai's present!"

"Huh?"

"Oh yeah! Where's your present, you should open it already!"

"If it's _actually_ from a secret admirer we won't judge."

Regis passed the bow-tied parcel to Raizel. He took it gently, sitting it snugly on his lap before looking up again at the children. Then he blinked, totally lost. Tao bolted up right after the moment's hesitation, putting two fingers together and going through the motions of opening the present for him.

Raizel looked to the parcel, then to Tao, and then to the parcel again, red eyes lit up with radicalising concentration.

"…Uh…Rai, I need to go home soon, you know. When you're ready…"

He did it the only way he knew—pulling apart the black ribbon with a pinkie finger gracefully extended. He unfurled the wrapping, like Tao motioned from afar, but taking far too much care on making sure it didn't rip in the slightest. The entire table leaned in, eyeing the gift.

 _"Frankenstein?"_

* * *

Words I had to double check

Vanguard: At the forefront of new developments/ foremost part of an advancing army

Kingpin: A person or thing that is essential to the success of an organisation

First big multi-chaptered fic of mine, phew!


	2. Merry Mary Silly Shelley 1

Sorry for the delay, but I got myself a beta reader. This chapter was bought to you with the help of Darkicedragon- check out their work too!

* * *

 _So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation._

\- Chapter 3, Frankenstein

* * *

 **End of 8th century**

 **Gregorian Calendar DCCXCVI**

 **Year 796**

Deep Underground

"Professor?" _Professor._ "Are you here?" _Are you here._

His call bounded off the stone walls, making even his voice ring cold as it echoed down the airless hallways, built like a serpentine maze some miles deep in the earth. Like the dead. The young boy shifted, holding up his torch light as if to fend off the darkness. No reply echoed back from it. It didn't seem to bother him.

The professor was perpetually busy, but these days the periods he was gone were becoming shorter and shorter—and that made the boy wince.

He clapped a hand to the wall and traced the rock forward, focusing on feeling the rough scrape under his palm as it slipped out of his fingers, rather than being forced to listen to the empty _click clack_ of footsteps ringing down identical corridors. The sound echoed back from the labyrinth in a lofty chorus, seemingly welling out from the pitch dark. The illusion of a horde of strangers was enough to repel the superstitious. And everyone was superstitious. But the Professor had taught him not to be.

It made the boy wince—he knew the Professor was tampering with his own entire schedule, slowing down his precious experiments to make time to spend with him. And his discoveries meant the entire mankind's advancement. To the boy, he was rearranging planets to mark his latest nerve chart— _'Now, I want you to label the nervous system on the body, before I dissect one for you next week. I'll have it embalmed so it can last a bit more. Any qualms? Where do I get them all? The grave, of course, where else?"_

Torchlight hit the far wall, shedding light onto a dead end. The boy straightened up, pushing his body off the wall until only his fingertips grazed it, and then took four methodical steps backward. _Click, clack,_ _click, clack._ Four steps for him; three for the Professor. Smiling slightly, he fumbled his fingers up the coarse rock, reaching as high as he could. _Huh?_ The familiar indentation was lower than he'd remembered. _Thanks, Professor,_ he thought, guiltily pleased.

The wall creaked, tearing apart almost strenuously to reveal a spiral staircase, reaching lower into the ground. Dumping the torch into a hold, the boy flounced to a lever, hovering his hand over it as if to ready himself, savour the moment. _And pull! T_ he wrench of his wrist made him stumble, but he waddled back expectantly, having eyes only for the ceiling. Two seconds delay, and a pair of lights flickered cautiously on, and another, and another, oscillating like lightning striking before it bathed the walls in white. The electricity crackling tamed behind each shard of glass—especially fashioned—was like turning on the very stars in the night sky.

The boy bounded down the spiral steps to the bottom, and his smile wiped off his face. Realisation dawned.

There was his room on the right—doorless and greeting, with a shelf full of his favourite scrolls. Three-quarters were written by the Professor, anyway. But on the left— _Oh God._ The Professor's private quarters were open. The boy ambled towards it, peering into the crack of light that seeped out. The Professor was really gone. And he'd left his quarters unlocked.

 _Unguarded._

This was also why he hated being alone. The childish awe that came with watching the very lightning being harnessed as easily as trapping a glow bug vanished, and he pushed open the door. The boy lingered a minute…two minutes…three. Quiet reigned. The gravity of the situation set, and he made his decision.

 _Don't forget what I'm here for._

He rushed across the room, stacked neatly to the brim with books, scrolls (undoubtedly all the Professor's) until he almost skidded over a loose piece of paper that had strayed off the desk. His hazel-gold eyes skimmed over the electric lamp—noticing the more even spread of energy, the yellower hue, the less glaring quality of the light—but he didn't give it a second thought. Here, he poured over the pile of notes.

He'd expected the cursive handwriting to make little sense, but this…this was boggling. The stacks of ink on paper covered most of the desk: on different parchments, in different inks, and to his awe, different languages. The boy leaned over the pages, sifting through the confusion. He only knew three languages at the moment: his own and what the Professor had taught him, but he could make out more here—some he'd never so much as come across before. German, French, Italian, English…what he thought must have been Russian…perhaps Indian? And he knew _that_ was in an Asian script, though he couldn't tell what it was. Maybe Japanese. Probably Korean.

He picked out a lambskin parchment, and squinted at the German.

"Unter…Seelen?"

What was this? ' _Taking souls?'_ It wasn't the strangest thing he'd come across in the Professor's writing anyhow. He moved on.

Something else caught his eye, and he couldn't avert them. It was a drawing. Not like the collection of inventions the Professor had designed; blueprints, he remembered, but something else. A wispily drawn, double-headed spear seemed to snake across the page, coloured in a substance he didn't know. It's golden colour almost emanated off the page into real life, demanding attention. It was slim, yet quaint, and at the same time, regal; he wondered why the Professor chose such a weapon.

A double-headed spear.

A 'qiang' in Chinese. It was peculiar.

But the careful sketch was uncannily drawn, the lines looking coarse yet at the same time, precise—with a fervent intent that meant this was important. The genius Professor had left the room so consumed by his work that he'd neglected to bolt his door with those six locks—one hailing from each continent (save the land of ice).

He felt horrible.

This wasn't merely important.

This was _momentous._

The boy rolled back his sleeve, using ink on the desk to scrawl down his findings on the inside of his forearm. He needed to give away this location soon—very soon, but for now, it seemed this place held better secrets than the other hideouts.

"Recolte," _harvesting,_ French.

"Resuscitatio," _reanimation,_ Latin.

"Menschliche Waffe," _human weapon,_ German.

Were the different languages coded too? Which of the codes did he use? The boy knew only two of his. Should he try scrawl down some circled words in the languages he didn't know? Try sketching the diagram? Nick some papers? But the Professor was too sharp; he'd know if something was missing. Or perhaps—

"Tesamu?"

The boy spasmed, agape, ripping his sleeve back down.

"Professor Frankenstein! You're back." He shifted over to greet him, knocking over a stack of books in the process. They collapsed, messing up the order of the papers he was seeing. "Ughh…sorry Sir."

"What are you doing in this room?" he asked intently. Tesamu smiled, skipping happily toward him. "I didn't mean to intrude, Professor, but…I—you—left the door open and I was just so… _curious."_

 _Tell the truth,_ he thought. It was the best way to maintain his cover; Frankenstein was just too sharp. _Tell the truth._

 _"_ I told you _not_ to call me Pro… _haah._ " The scientist cocked his head without shifting his eyes, and moved to a crouch. "Tesamu, you should have waited next time before trespassing. It's not always safe in my room. What if there was an experiment on that desk instead? Do you want to lose a finger?"

He hesitated for a second. "I, could have struck you down…if I failed recognise you in time…my reflexes are rather—unorthodox. " His voice wasn't even warning, almost…desolate.

"Sorry." The boy hung his head. "I didn't mean to. _Sorry."_

The scientist sighed jokingly, and laid his hand out to his apprentice. Tesamu took it with a smile. But he drooped when the Professor led him back to the desk. He looked up tentatively, but the Professor only smiled back, emitting warmth. Happiness.

Trust.

"So. What's caught your keen eye this time? How may this humble experimentator assist the young genius?"

Tesamu flushed, pleased with an embarrassment.

"You're not angry?"

"Tch, tch; Te _samu_ if _I_ was ashamed of my curiosity… Let's be realistic—if more people were like you—hn—people wouldn't insist the world is flat," he said, almost bored.

"Or," Tesamu continued, "that the sun star revolves around the earth."

"Ha!" He was seeing him smile more and more these days. "Exactly." A white glove appeared to flick his fringe, making Tesamu pull back animatedly.

"Alright! Mercy already! Alright…so, so, why do you have this…two-headed spear design. My first impression was Asian, but I can't be sure…What's it for? Isn't the crossbow you invented more efficient? Why the colour gold? Isn't that unfavourable—wouldn't a more discrete colour suit? It'll give away your location too easily, won't it?"

Tesamu flung his head back to look pointedly at him. "What _is_ it constructed of? Have you discovered another element I'm not aware of?"

He saw the scientist pull back to stifle a chuckle. "Aha…I wouldn't have had to be the world's only heretic if you'd come about a century earlier, Tesamu."

"Hey…"

"Hm…excuse me, that was supposed to be a compliment, but to be excessively honest, the only time I talk to _people_ is when I insult them."

"Liar."

"…Pardon?"

"You're not really like that, Professor. You're not a cruel man. You're not like _them._ "

* * *

He played the part of a mad man, because that was all humanity could see him as. The scientist hated the hate in his apprentice's voice. How could so much contempt roll off such a young boy? One that had seen too much and more than he deserved.

He set his jaw.

"It's a weapon I designed to fight Nobles."

Tesamu blinked up at him, and then back to the drawing. A new light lit up in his eyes.

The scientist pulled out his chair, prompting Tesamu to sit and began his explanation, knowing the bright boy would lap up his every word, soaking up knowledge and sharing his hatred of nobles, like he did.

* * *

Chapter 2

 **Merry Mary Silly Shelley.**

Peace had finally found its place in Frankenstein's house, amid the part-werewolf, the enhanced humans, the young nobles, and the Noblesse. The chaos of battle between the traitors and the Union was replaced by the impending doom of mess—crumbs lying idle, food wrappers strewn everywhere, and stains on his modern, luxury couch. The children who had befriended his Master bought their own, different kind of chaos into Frankenstein's house every other day, and he tolerated it—anything—so long as it made his Master happy. As time drew on, he grew strangely accustomed to the sound of chatter and noisy commotion.

But no acknowledged peace, unless it was shattered.

It was quiet at first. But as the days passed, Frankenstein couldn't ignore the subtle presence that grew in him. Perhaps at home, or in his office at school, he could feel the slightest wind of movement behind him, or the smallest of a breath somewhere. All the while, he couldn't ignore the prickling of his hairs at the back of his neck, the sudden change in the atmosphere around him. His senses never dulled and all the time, he could feel it, he knew it. Frankenstein was being watched. That fact didn't alarm the man, but it was another thought that did.

He wasn't sure.

Frankenstein couldn't tell whether there really was someone or something tailing him, stalking him in the distance, or whether his senses were just too keen after the last battle. He didn't like it. Not being sure. In a busy street, he felt the crowd around him change, and he couldn't pinpoint what it was, the source. It had happened for too long now, and his mind was growing itchy; his paranoia flaring up. Sure that he himself was not going… _insane_ , he decided, finally, to tell the rather old news to his Master before he graded it as too desperate or insignificant.

But first…he had to prove it on a viable basis before he told the enhanced humans the young nobles. And the school children, he had to wait for them to leave before—

 _"Frankenstein?"_

The questioning voice of Shinwoo dragged him back into the kitchen.

"Mmph?" He turned around, mildly. "Yes? Shinwoo?"

It was as if someone had switched off the lights. Though the room was the same, the space had changed and M-21 and Takeo pricked their heads around to stare at the back of Frankenstein's. They had noticed it before even he had, and his mistake lay thick and groggy in the air. Frankenstein had answered to his name. His real name.

"What did you call me?" Frankenstein asked flatly.

"Eh? Chairman?" the teenager called back without looking.

Frankenstein stood from the chair, facing the table. "I'm asking why you cal—"

"Ffffrankenstein! Chairman Lee!" Tao's loud cry cut through his, and he bounded off his seat as well. "Ahaha! Look, Chairman Lee, Rai got a copy of _'Frankenstein,' "_ he stressed, "the _book._ "

Frankenstein paled. The strange realisation wavered. Something like anger welled up inside him. He bit it down, swallowing the feeling, but it left his eyes cold.

"Principal?" Shinwoo said suddenly, "…did I say something?"

"Hn, no—no." His voice was low. He could feel M-21 and Takeo shift uncomfortably behind him. Frankenstein looked to his Master's back. He hadn't moved an inch. Picking up one of the papers from the kitchen table, Frankenstein busied his eyes on it, smiling again.

"So, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—curious gift isn't it? Who gave it to him?" He didn't lift his sight from the paper, though he wasn't really seeing it.

"We don't know; Rai found it on his desk between classes."

"Still think it's a secret admirer? Who thought to give a present like that?"

" 'Frankenstein'—isn't it…like a horror story?"

"I guess…" It was Yuna who spoke. "But I've read it—yeah, _me_ of all people who can't sleep with those kinds of stories!—and I wasn't scared…" She peered at the book. "If anything, it's quite sad."

The kids went back to their slumping on the couch. Frankenstein listened, his eyes never leaving the paper.

"It's about a young scientist who becomes obsessed with knowledge and…well, his ambition, because of that. He was a genius, and things in his life drove him to his ambition. Uh…his mother, right? His mother died of scarlet fever. So, he discovers the way to breathe life into his very own being—something like playing God, you could say."

The children were listening, fatigue in their eyes, and they were oblivious to how tense the air had become.

"Yeah?"

"So, he creates the monster and brings it to life. But then—" Yuna paused. M-21 looked to Frankenstein. He had closed his eyes. "—he, well, rejects the monster because it didn't turn out how he created it to be. He was ugly—stitched together with stolen body parts…his blood vessels were visible under the skin, he was super huge…the scientist could hardly look at it."

"What kind of an admirer gives their crush a _book like that_?"

"Shht—Shinwoo," Tao's snapped, unjokingly.

"And then, the monster is hated by everyone, so he vows revenge on Frankenstein," Yuna leaned back on the couch, "his creator."

"You're a kind girl, Yuna." The table looked up again. Frankenstein slid off his glasses. "You call the monster a 'he.' " She shrugged, thinking nothing of it.

"Ok…?" Ikhan piped up. "But who gave the present then? I mean, I dunno, Halloween's a long way away." He fiddled with a wrapper, the rest of the food on the table forgotten.

"Someone's idea of a joke or something," Suyi scoffed, brushing back disgust like she did her hair. "Wrapped it up all nice too. Don't think about it, Rai, it's fine."

Something finally clicked with the students, and they all looked to each other with abrupt disbelief.

"You saying someone's trying to scare Rai with this? What the _hell?"_ The tiredness drained from Shinwoo's face, and his eyes became predatory. "What kind of person—"

"I am fine, Shinwoo," came Raizel's voice, soft and gentle.

 _"No._ It's not _fine."_

"A mere book does not faze me."

"Yeah?!" Shinwoo inhaled agitatedly. "…Alrigh—I know already. Just—whoever gave you that book…man they have a lot of spare time."

"Kuh. I agree. " Suyi said lowly.

Frankenstein put down the paper and clapped a hand onto the table. "Ok now, everybody. It's only getting later tonight. I'll ask Regis and Seira to escort you home once you say goodbye to your classmate. I won't be blamed if you come late for school tomorrow."

The children shrugged themselves off the couch, scrunching up their plastic bags. "Ok then, night, Rai. We'll see ya at school tomorrow."

"Yeah, let's go to the internet cafe after parent-teacher night."

Ikhan pursed his lips, looking worried for a moment. He tossed his last toffee to Rai, who just barely caught it in his lap. Rai held it up cupped in one hand, showing Ikhan carefully.

"Hey, I'll treat ramyeon tomorrow, ok? Whatever you guys want. Except you, Shinwoo—one bowl only. My present to you, Rai."

Raizel lifted from the seat and strode over to the door, seeing them out. "I am fine, Ikhan. Thank you." He smiled.

"Later!"  
"Night Rai, hyungs and adjussi."

"See you tomorrow, Chairman Lee."

"Funny though—for a second there, I actually thought the Chairman answered to 'Frankenstein.' _Hah."_

"Later guys!" Tao waved them out.

Frankenstein lifted his brows, grinning. "Goodnight." He shut the doorand immediately turned on the trio.

"Who the hell gave Master _that book?"_ There was demand in Frankenstein's voice, and Takeo felt guilty, even though it wasn't anything his fault. How could it be? When they were security members who patrolled around the schools, not in the classrooms between the kids classes.

"I—we don't know. It was a present. Wrapped in a parcel, placed on his desk—we only know what the kids just said."

Frankenstein winced inwardly, and trailed into the kitchen. They realised he was making tea, and not planning the murder of some insecure high school kid. "That was simply just pathetic of me. I almost slipped my identity." He rounded a corner, carefully placing tea before his Master, who had sat again.

"So what does the book mean?" M-21 strode over to the couches, taking a seat next to Rai. M-21 hovered a hand over the book, searching Raizel's eyes—and he nodded his consent.

He held up the book, flipping quickly through before shutting it. A musty smell wafted from the yellowish pages. "It's old."

He narrowed his eyes on the cover. _This was why the children were offended?_ The title, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was inscribed in gothic, green lettering over the shadowy image of a man. M-21 held it closer. The man's face wasn't exactly what he'd call 'ugly.' It looked like something out of a classical art period: hyper-realistic, and almost ethereal. What little light hit the man's face was glowing. But the kids were right: there was a horror in the picture. The man's face was partly covered by a pair of hands, more contorting over it than touching. As M-21 looked, he could guess what the figure was doing—trying, and failing to hide the multiple red, uneven scars streaked across, keeping his face together. He stifled the urge to lick over the scar on his lips. A few black wisps bled from the monster's hair. His skin didn't look human.

"…Creepy, huh?" Tao breathed over his shoulder. M-21 bashed a shoulder into Tao, and handed the book to Takeo.

"So, what did this used to be?"

"What?"

"I mean…I thought it was an old-timey movie or something. Ghost story. Isn't it?" M-21 mused. Wrappers crunched around him as he shifted, and he started picking them up and off the ground.

"Yeah, there's been heaps of stuff—movies and plays, created off of it." Tao answered.

"So which one is most accurate?"

Takeo placed the book down near Raizel again. "Huh?"

"The book—duh."

Frankenstein scoffed suddenly, turning their heads, and they watched him chuckle. The faint, malicious aura festered up again, glowing purple, and he cocked his head to the side. "If it's accuracy you want," his voice was low and dangerous, "I can give you all an accurate account of my life."

It clicked.

"No way." Tao looked estranged. "The scientist in the book _is_ based on you." He looked as if he didn't know what to do with that information, tilting his head. "I mean…it was kinda obvious, but I didn't want to ask."

"Then ask."

That stumped him. Really though, he didn't _actually_ want him to ask, did he?

When Takeo broke the silence, Tao was more than thankful. "You can't actually give life to inanimate things, can you? Not even you."

"Well…" Frankenstein pulled back, "it depends on what your definition of 'life' is. Aris made the two cyborgs…the eighth elder existed, and then those anti-clan leader weapons…" He jut a finger into the air, "and soul weapons. Soul weapons are sentient."

Frankenstein's face drooped the moment those last words came out. Tao suddenly didn't want to pry. Frankenstein always answered their questions, always gave them straight answers, but for the first time…he looked uncomfortable.

The conversation still ended incredibly quickly.

Frankenstein tilted a hand toward his centre, bringing his eyes to the floor. "My Lord. Are you alright?"

For the first time since the evening, Raizel turned his gaze towards Frankenstein, drinking in his bothered image. The connection sifted open and a rush of warmth surged to Frankenstein. Warmth and love and _caring._ Frankenstein's malice wilted in his embrace. Raizel turned to him. "Even the children are worrying for me. But I do not need such concern. It is as I said. It is a book." Raizel nodded carefully to him. "You are angered by this. I do not need you to tell me that this is a lie constructed by your old enemies. I know you, Frankenstein."

That thought had never concerned him, no. But Frankenstein felt shame tick through for Raizel to have thought to jump to his defence. Frankenstein lowered his shoulders, strangely relieved, but looked far from relaxed. A vacancy resided through his eyes, and he shook it away to bow to Raizel. "I'm not angry at all. Forgive me for imposing."

He turned to the trio. "Miss Mary Shelley, unfortunately, was a Union spy. As were a lot of people in her time. The 1800's was a… _trying_ time for me, to say the least." Frankenstein smirked though gritted teeth.

"Ok…so, does some high school kid have a grudge against Boss's Boss or what?" Tao asked. Takeo and M-21 turned to Tao. "And why 'Frankenstein?'….The _book_ , I mean."

"To be honest," M-21 said, dropping his hands to his side, "Regis is already going to go ape on guarding Sir Raizel. It's a kid, so unless this book has something else going on…"

 _"If_ it's a kid," Takeo intercepted. He parried M-21's stare. "What? Don't you think _maybe_ it's a little suspicious that we get landed with a book titled _'Frankenstein?'_ Raise any alarms?"

"If someone's trying to go after the Boss, then, _wow."_ Tao sighed heartily, brushing a hand behind his head. "It's not going to be the _Boss_ I would be worried about."

"Or," Frankenstein's voice drew their attentions again, "a high school child is taking the time to buy antique books to bully my Master." His monotonous voice took a turn, and Frankenstein sounded exasperated. "Just rest up for tomorrow. We're all going to be dealing with parents the entire day. Night."

The enhanced humans ambled off. "Night then."

"Boss, Sir."

Frankenstein picked up the finished tea cup on the table and bought it up to refill it, thankful, but not peaceful, in the silence.

* * *

Notes

I hope you like flashbacks, cos we're gonna get a looot of those~

Also, Mary Shelley is v cool and I apologise for the title. Shelley started writing _Frankenstein_ at 18 and it's the first true science fiction! She is the mother of the genre.

Um, understand that this may have a lot of historical inaccuracies due to how far back the dates are sometimes, hehe. Of course modern German and French and even conventional latin had not yet evolved back then, so the stuff I used off of google translate isn't correct for the time.

History nod to a heap of famous, rule-breaking scientists and doctors who stole bodies for the sake of medical advancement- including Andreas Versalius and Da Vinci.

Also, the specific cover of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, can be found with a google search. I've put the link up on the profile page so you can copy/paste~ (go ahead and replace **dot** with an actual full stop): flavorwire **dot** com/376485/monstrous-vintage-covers-of-mary-shelleys-frankenstein/13


	3. Merry Mary Silly Shelley 2

_Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay_

 _To mould me Man, did I solicit thee_

 _From darkness to promote me?_

-Title page of Frankenstein, from Milton's Paradise Lost.

* * *

 **12th Century,**

 **Gregorian Calendar MCXC**

 **Year 1190**

Solitude manor.

A man stood by the window, reaching a hand to press on the cold glass until it began to fog under the heat of his palm. He blinked, curling his hand into a fist to wipe it. One murky spot sullied the otherwise glistening glass, pedantically polished. He peered through. There was a weight in his weary eyes, and the sight of the outside made him bitter.

 _'_ _What do you see when you stand there everyday?'_

 _'_ _The sky, the forest, the earth…everything that can be seen from here.'_

He held on to the rasp of _his_ voice, the meaning it meant for _him_. He saw nothing. There was nothing there. There was nothing here. Nothing in this meticulous, spacious room, nothing in this great, grand mansion, and nothing to tug on his remaining heartstrings or make him want to continue breathing this stale air. His hand was still placed on the tarnished glass, and his fingers were growing cold. He leaned forward, thumping his forehead into the back of his palm. How much longer did it have to be like this? How much longer must he wait?

 _Oh._

 _So this was how he lived?_

Frankenstein's eyes blurred out of focus, making the colour of the grey skies and jaded clouds and green trees converge in like a rippling reflection on a once-still lake, and elude him. He was stuck looking at the mirror image of his own wait-worn eyes, void of passion, with broken wit—wist, no energy left to even focus them.

Frankenstein knew how _he_ had endured standing around in this spot for some eternity until he landed himself in this mansion. He knew how lonesome and dreary it must have been, not the sound of pattering footsteps to mull over or even the tick-tock of a clock to keep him company. People never stayed long— _ever,_ not long enough, never enough—and any clock left here would tick, and rust and stop, sooner than one would know. Everything was finite, here, except time. Frankenstein thought he knew it well. Even for Frankenstein, when he was running from his own kind, he'd always kept himself occupied and there was never a moment for an extra breath. His master was different.

But he didn't need to imagine anymore. He could live it. He could live his hell. He could die in it.

 _What?_

No. It would never come to that.

 _I'll find him. I'll find him._

Waiting droned on like a ceaseless, noteless melody; a yearning hymn that would stretch on, no finish in sight. Like looking through this window. What would it take? A couple months? A couple years? Certainly, if he'd dedicated his all to this, he could find him within five, ten years. Fifty years, perhaps. There was no way he wouldn't find him within fifty years, would he? He wasn't that pathetic.

 _I'll find you._

Frankenstein turned, never looking back to this lonesome place.

But he'd remember it well, remember it excruciatingly: every mark on the sill—one from a tea-stain he never managed to get out, the slight dent in the floor where a cup had shattered and the wisp in the rug that used to hook the heel of his shoe. He'll see it all even if he didn't, not really, deep in his dreams.

* * *

 **Merry Mary Silly Shelley part 2**

Mary Shelley. Frankenstein darkened. He'd never met the lady, but the anger he garnered from reaching the end of that book the first time, was not something he could ever forget. A book full of lies to draw out _humanity's traitor._ He'd spun and laughed at the vast upchuck of _Ye Olde Union propaganda,_ more of that age-old fear mongering they were so good at. But there was something sickening about his enemies constructing a dramatic story on his so-called life, and then blatantly sticking his name on the cover. _No subtlety._ The Union. He wondered how much was lie and how much was…what the Union really thought he was.

The humans who chased him, gave him no rest or peace for the longest time—they were all dead now, weren't they? He curled his lips. That thought gave him comfort. But then the book—Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus—it really was the legacy left behind to those running the human side of the organisation now.

No one would ever know the truth.

He didn't know whether that gave him comfort or not.

"Frankenstein?" came the quiet, questioning voice of Raizel.

"Oh? Sorry, Master, I didn't mean to space out like that." He set down his tea, bowing slightly. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Raizel's eyes reached for Frankenstein's again, and his blue eyes shuddered when he saw Raizel's deeply troubled expression.

"Master?"

"I don't know what 'parent-teacher' interviews are."

Something snapped within him. _How could I…forget something so basic?_ He dipped forward, low, and bowed apologetically. "Forgive me, Master…I…it slipped my mind. I ask for your pardon."

"It is fine." Raizel only sipped his tea.

* * *

"So, tomorrow, is what is called in the human education system as 'parent-teacher' night. This is a conference in which the teacher, the student, and the said student's guardian, discuss the student's studies and progress."

He thought for a moment. "For example, take Shinwoo and Ikhan. Ikhan, although his report has some concerns over his excessive use of his laptop during class," his brows twitched for a second, "has rather excellent grades. So, he will have his conference with Pedro, your homeroom teacher, Master. But Shinwoo, on the other hand," Frankenstein paused as Raizel moved to sip his tea a little too knowingly.

" _Well_ …Shinwoo has the worst grades in the entire class. And his parents have emailed—yes, by using a computer—to book a conference with me. I have to oblige as the chairman." He glanced at him worriedly.

"….Shinwoo…is always so tired." He replied.

"As I've heard, Master…" Frankenstein answered, wryly. "But nevertheless, he has many opportunities in sporting and athletics. Anyhow," Frankenstein continued.

"Do you understand why the children cannot walk you home tomorrow night?"

Raizel put down his cup and dipped his head again in understanding.

"So, Seira and Regis will escort you home. I apologise, but I must have M-21, Takeo and Tao work late. With so many people coming into the school, I want to have a fully functioning security system. Thus, I will be late home as well."

Frankenstein touched his fingers over his mouth, wondering if he'd missed anything. "This will go on for the next two days, but all should return to normal after the conferences are done." He finished, and reached to refill the teacup.

"I see." Raizel said.

He curled a finger on the porcelain cup, but made no move to drink it. "You are concerned."

 _What?_

"I am—" Frankenstein swallowed, "I'm not…concerned, per se…"

"You are."

He knew his master didn't even try to read his mind there.

Frankenstein dropped his walls and placed down the teapot. He sat down near Raizel and slouched for a moment, elbows resting on knees. Usually, he'd rather his Master had retired by this time and gained some sleep—more for the comfort and routine than however meagre it was in such short periods. But his full attention was on him, and Frankenstein was content, just sitting here in his company. Relaying information had calmed him, but for this, he needed to find the right words. Raizel gave him time.

"I'm just—" Frankenstein frowned, whipped the glasses off his face, and blinked up at him again. "I'm just…" _Oh no._ He couldn't use the word _concerned._ _Worried?_ No. _Perturb?_ No. Too harsh.

"… _upset,"_ he grimaced inwardly at himself, "that people have to come into contact with that. Book."

Raizel put down the tea from where he was balancing it on his lap.

"Only because…well, I'm not sure. None of the other…things…passed down about me bother me, especially after so much time has passed but _that_ one. All the adaptions last century alone— _sigh_ —I don't understand why it's not dead yet."

Frankenstein leaned back languidly, letting his hands fall loosely to his sides. "They never stopped chasing me, Master. After I met you, I could relax. But when you left, and I left Lukedonia…it was the same. I don't know when the Union stopped being an organisation of just humans but…at least for the human branch, I was still undesirable number one."

He paused for a moment, putting his hands together. "That book. Of course, lies, but…it was published so recently. Those people back then—the whole world should have moved on, forgetting me. I think… _Master?"_ he asked, searching for his crimson stare.

"Yes?"

Frankenstein's shoulders lowered and a slight tremor ran through his hands. Why was this affecting him so much? Why should this matter? Why was he bothering his Master with his weakness? But only caring reached from Raizel's mind. He waited for Frankenstein to answer. He wanted to help, even if listening was the only thing.

Frankenstein bit his lip. He had said too much. _Oh no._ But some small, guilty part of him wanted for Raizel to know everything. It felt like a confession, suddenly—something dirty and ugly to present to Raizel like a bizarre gift of himself.

"No humans ever knew the truth about me, and I allowed that to happen—I wanted that to happen. But now I've lived so long, I've left a terrible legacy on this world." A great grin stretched across Frankenstein's face, but he couldn't maintain it and it cracked—half-way to a grimace.

"Even if I die now, I can't get rid of it."

Frankenstein dropped Raizel's caring stare. A great melancholy fell over him, and he began putting up walls, putting up walls without even realising. He never cared for what mankind thought of him—that was _the point_ of him, back then. They created a fantasy to claw him down, so he turned around and coloured it nicely. It never bothered him for an age—why should it now?

"Alright—" Frankenstein perked up suddenly, throwing his long hair behind him. "Honestly I have no idea why this concer— _annoyed_ me—especially since I've seen far worse storytelling and far worse… _everything else."_ He leapt to his feet.

 _"Frankenstein."_

Raizel's voice was soft and gentle, none of the demand and power it could muster in a mere thought even close. But while it was whispered to the room, it reverberated in Frankenstein's mind, grounding him, and stopping him from enclosing himself up deep within those thick, high walls.

"Yes, My Lord." He answered, arm habitually flitting to his centre. He looked expectantly down at him.

"Lies, remain lies."

Frankenstein nodded purposefully and desperately hoped that this was the end of the conversation. All he really needed to do was suck it up. How embarrassing was this, anyway? The real matter that should be discussed should be how to catch the idiot who dared wrap such filth up to his master.

But he continued. "How like you, to do this. You traverse this world learning it's knowledge, advancing it's prosperity, though you do not look for recognition. You never look for praise. Yet the moment something like this arises, you blame yourself."

Raizel craned his neck with all the air of his age reflected in his being, and he looked every inch the being capable of commanding Clan Leaders. "I will not allow this."

Frankenstein stood there, rooted to the spot, rooted in Raizel's stare.

"Let me discount all the advancements you've made for humans. For now, only now, I'll discount the way you've guided change, the way you've bettered…everything." Raizel said, for lack of another word. He smiled; it still fit perfectly. A world without Frankenstein, was a world that would have been wholly different. "Your legacy, is in those children."

Frankenstein blanked for a second, brows scrunching.

"Your legacy, is that school." Raizel beamed, genuinely, and his warmth radiated to fill Frankenstein. He looked at him. Then he looked through him, and although in those blue eyes, it was always daylight, Raizel looked at him as though he was the stars—every single, last one of them.

"Your legacy, is also _Lukedonia."_ The change he'd bought Lukedonia, the change he'd bought noble-kind, was momentous. The embodiment of mankind's future. A bright future. He had changed everything. Daylight shifted in his eyes, and when Frankenstein looked down, flustered, they became the ocean, vast, deep, and just as brilliant.

"Your legacy, is all the lives you've saved. That's M-21, Takeo, Tao. Even Regis and Seira…I cannot begin to count enough people." He stood, going to Frankenstein's side and clasping a firm hand on his shoulder. "You are Frankenstein. Not the title of a book."

Frankenstein was lost for words. The feeling of Raizel's soul holding his was…awe. His cheeks heated, and Raizel turned his gaze to let him recover. Frankenstein had to carefully narrow down their connection, should he still want to remain standing and not collapse in a bubbly heap. That would be most inelegant right now.

But there was nothing to say. Raizel could feel his gratitude, though he didn't want it. Frankenstein pushed away all his other, secondary emotions—any shame or embarrassment on his part swept away. He didn't need to burden Master with those petty feelings. Frankenstein just dipped his head to him.

"…I, er, _white tulips."_ Frankenstein said.

Raizel only closed his eyes, and smiled. Between them, they understood.

"But there is something else on your mind. You may tell me."

Of course Raizel felt it. Yes. There were more pressing matters at hand than this. Frankenstein straightened.

"The moment you came home, your worry has been growing. Please, tell me."

Frankenstein smiled weakly. "Right. What I really wanted to bring forth with you…"

"Yes?"

"…I don't want you to be alarmed, Master, but my senses have been all wrong these past few days…please take a seat."

* * *

The chandelier gleamed like cat's eyes, the way it did only when each individual crystal was taken apart and cleaned by hand. Stuffed arm chairs were placed exactly to the point, cushions clinically placed. Somewhere between going through mechanical motions and a relentless purge, nothing escaped scrutiny here. This place was immaculate.

A hooded man walked the length of the room, shaking his foot free when it caught on a few threads of the rug. He slid his fingers over the sill, tapping in a springy sequence when it yielded no dust. Both inhabitants of this place were gone.

But that was only half of what he wanted.

* * *

"You feel that you are being watched?" Raizel spoke, a moment's pause after hearing the story. Frankenstein shuddered. He didn't want to sound desperate or anything, but this, coupled with the timely arrival of that book…he hoped it was his paranoia. He knew _this_ all too well, and the familiarity stung like salting an old, reopened wound. If someone was after Frankenstein—that meant he was a magnet attracting harm to everyone around him. Frankenstein could only just get around to doing all his duties, without having a bullseye painted on his back.

His insides wanted to jolt against his ribcage. Back then—someone was always after him, and being alone kept him safe. But now, _everyone around him_ meant the entirety of Ye Ran High School. The Noble children. The enhanced humans. Master.

Raizel's voice drew him out of his own snowballing pause. "I believe," he said cautiously, "that I too, am being watched. Along with the children."

Blue eyes shot up to reach red. "What?"

Frankenstein exhaled, and crunched his teeth together. "When? During class?"

Raizel nodded. His eyes were calm, serene, and he looked about as disinterested as ever, but Frankenstein knew it was for his sake. Another thought make him cringe.

"Then, Regis and Seira, they _can't_ sense it. Let alone Takeo, Tao and M-21." Raizel watched Frankenstein's hands curl up. _"Fine._ There's no doubt about it then, someone's got their sights set on me. The perpetrator is highly skilled if they're able to slip past Tao's security. The noble children… _me."_

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if his biggest problems made him a jaded school principal with too many files to never look at. He wished that could have been him, right now. That his largest threats could be ink on paper, piled atop each other, in a clutter over his desk.

"This is no common adversary, Master. I don't believe anyone in the KSA has this kind of skill. Other than the Union, or a noble…I've no idea where to start. It could be multiple people…it could be one."

"If they've taken an interest in you, why follow school children?"

"…Master," Frankenstein looked away. He licked his dry lips. Raizel understood.

"Frankenstein."

"Yes, Master."

Crimson eyes waited for his gaze. "I give you permission to act. Upon my orders, you will investigate this matter."

Frankenstein rose from the seat again. He lowered his head, and fell forward into a bow. His brows furrowed before settling, and he peered up through a curtain of blonde hair. "Do I—have consent to engage combat?"

Frankenstein watched Raizel contemplate his request, weighing his choices. Catch the culprit and find the reason they've been tailed, or potentially create another commotion. Risk collateral damage. Last time and all the times before then—they were all close calls.

"You may engage combat…but you are not to remove your seal. Frankenstein, you will not call upon Dark Spear." His decision was final.

"Yes, Master." Frankenstein smiled.

* * *

Notes

Supportive Rai in this chapter! (I hope everybody likes angst because that is 98.99% what I end up writing.)

 _'hot dang' reviewer-_ I'll have to answer you here. So I heard you liked plot, relationships and flashback? ;) Hmmm I guess this is sort of an AU, because some characters that appear later are already dead in the manhwa...I just need more characters to work with ahaha. Nonono, it's not *that Mary, the actual Mary Shelley, in this ficverse! Yes, sorry to rip off Thomas Edison and Tesla guys, they're the first ones to harness electricity and create lightbulbs. Man, can't answer all your q yet, or they'll be nothing to discover later! Oh, and I heard you liked backstory? ;) Hopefully I can get you as many feeling of Rai and Franken and the crew as I can. Thank you for all your kind words and I've read your review more times than I might admit.

Laryna6- Thanks! All the flashback arcs are something I keep close to my heart~ Added a tad more to this chapter too.

XxDarkBeautyxX- that is a good plot bunny- Franken gets a mini Franken plushie. Tao's rescue is pretty lifesaving tbh. Thanks for your review! And man *wink wink, nudge nudge* hopefully you'll enjoy the upcoming chapters~

And thank you all for reading so far!


	4. The Calm

Ok so the beta's disappeared. This is what you might call an 'in-between chapter'...bear with it...things will speed v v soon...

IMPORTANT: Um, viewer discretion is advised. I apologise I didn't put this up earlier, but I definitely ought to put up some warnings. Please beware of Dark themes such as violence, gore, alcohol use, ptsd and trauma, depression, as well as swear words which might appear in other chapters. Thank you.

* * *

 **15th Century**

 **Islamic Calendar, 870–871**

 **Gregorian calendar** **, MCDLXVI**

 **Year 1466**

Girl named 'R'

City of Gao,

Mali of the Songhai Empire,

Africa.

He forgot to eat for awhile. Sand sifted between the ridges of his woven cloak, collecting in weighty tufts inside the folds that made him remarkably aware of the weight of his own body. His face and hair were concealed under a tied-over hood, something that resembled the headdresses worn here. The scruffy garment hung loosely over him in shapeless drapes, and he could almost ignore the far, and not-so-far reaches of his body growing thinner.

He knew the uncanny difference in weight when he put a foot in front of the other, the slighter twist of his waist, the lighter shake of his head. He'd lost a couple pounds and a couple more ounces, and didn't need a measuring scale to know when he could feel it all—him—shifting around his brittler bones bright as day. It wasn't enough to be awfully noticeable. His jaw was a bit sharper, his cheeks a little more stretched, the styloid bone at his wrists a tad more protruded. But when he touched his lankier fingers over his arms, his ribs, his chest, he could feel it shrinking, all skin and muscle withering back into himself. Millimetre by millimetre.

However, that was still five days ago. If he'd separated from the dusty walls, if he stood for just a moment, he'd know just how much more he'd let himself deteriorate. Under the desert sun he shied away from the wealthy, thriving city. And under those layers of cloth and garment, he didn't need to know.

A tug on his rags.

He looked up. A girl's warm, brown face stared back at him, her rope-like black hair furling in haphazard lengths and shapes and sizes. She was dark, but he made out the pigmented scatter of darker freckles on her face, and she seemed glowing in this light. She tilted her head at him.

She spoke in her language. After a few, broken tries, he bantered back to her sunny face, finally finding his underused voice. "My name's Rafa." "Frankenstein." "Fr—wha?" "Frank-en-stein." She was so trying in her high voice and scrunched nose but at the same time, genuine and deliberate. He'd hadn't laughed in awhile either, and after a short time, he said, "Just call me 'F.'"

His lips were chapped and his eyes were weary. She presented a yellow yam before him, insisting to share what little she had. She was a wonderful thing and he thought, when he found his Master, he'd tell him of this little, glowing girl. "Rafa."

* * *

 **The Calm**

It was hot—the sun's rays drew out forever, painting the air bright and glaring, and students withered in their seats as the bell times grew nearer. But today, they wouldn't release them from school so easily.

The field was lined with rows of gleaming cars, and the gates of Ye Ran were opened to all. Instead of pristine, white uniforms, a colourful horde flocked through the gates at all hours, and when the school bell rang, they didn't stop.

The school was the busiest it had being.

Takeo moved from the carparks after the spaces ran out again, and motioned for incoming parents to park in another area. A tinge of silvery hair caught his eye, and he raised his brows questioningly.

M-21 ambled away. Takeo sighed, tiredly, and followed his back.

"Yo~ cola." Tao flung a can towards him as he sat on a picnic bench next to M-21.

"We really supposed to be doing this?"

"Eh, we've been shepherding people who've been ignoring us the entire day. Ten minutes man, then you can go back to your sheep counting."

M-21 frowned exaggeratedly, and chugged down an entire can. "Pretty tense, last night."

Tao nodded, "yeah, if my dramatised life story got published and marketed as _horror,_ I'd be pretty upset too." He sipped the can.

"Just drop it, Frankenstein seemed actually annoyed by it. Not gonna try mention that again." Takeo said, about to yawn.

"You really think it's just an accident that he got that thing?"

"…"

"I dunno, M-21," Tao said, watching coke drip down his can and wet the table in a perfect ring. "Does Boss's Boss strike you as someone who'll go around tripping kids in the corridor or something, making enemies? He couldn't cut in line for minute ramyeon if he _wanted_ to."

Takeo smirked, looking down. "You realise a heap of Clan Leaders flat out betrayed him, right?"

"Yeah. Kids at this school have more honour than that."

M-21 and Takeo both blew air out from their noses.

Tao continued, abruptly, "wait—you mean—traitors sent Sir the book?"

"Hn?!" Takeo snapped up, all tense. Suddenly, noble traitors infiltrating a school to send hate-mail to Raizel-nim sounded much more plausible than him getting bullied by high school kids.

"…Should we bring it up with him?"

"No."

"No."

M-21 clicked his knuckles. "Boss'll flip. He probably suspects already. But right now, we just need to guard them while they're at school, and everything should be quiet until the Union or those traitors make another move. Just wait it out."

".…You're right."

"Sir?" M-21 called out. He briskly got up, and after darting his eyes about for loose students, lost parents, he bobbed his head in Raizel's direction. "Anything the matter?"

Tao set out another can on the picnic bench, "coke?"

Raizel smiled, and shook his head gently.

"Why are you here? Wasn't school done ages ago for you guys?" Takeo asked, shuffling on the bench. He flipped up Tao's watch, who pressed it closer to his face in annoyance, and frowned a little. "Where are Regis and Seira?"

"I told them to return home before me…"

 _And they listened to that? Dang-it, Raizel-nim._

"…because I want to wait for Frankenstein."

"…"

"Sir, he's going to be home late, though."

"I understand."

"Oh, well, ok, just uh, give us a call and we'll walk you home then?

"…If that is what you wish."

Takeo eyed him starkly. "That's what we wish, yeah. Well, since you're staying, why don't you go up to the office? He's there right now."

"Yeah," Tao added, "Go tell him yourself so he doesn't fire us."

M-21 and Takeo flipped back to glare at Tao.

"Oh," Raizel answered. A troubled expression fell over his face, and Raizel looked lost.

"Sir?"

Raizel looked up, lips pursed in pensiveness. They waited for his answer. His hand slipped into his pocket. "The children showed me how to purchase candy, from a 'vending machine.' But I couldn't find a flavour like ramen. So Yuna helped me choose 'grapefruit.'"

He looked worried. "I do not know what grapefruit tastes like…"

The enhanced humans peered at his opened palm. Four neatly wrapped lollies lay equally spaced, right-way-up.

Tao bounced from his bench, and took one. "Thanks, Sir! I love grapefruit!" he ripped the wrapper and chucked the lolly into the air, catching it with a crack of his teeth. "Thaah—Dhaa."

Raizel perked up and beamed.

Takeo took another and tossed one to M-21. "Thanks, Raizel-nim."

"You shouldn't have…" M-21 muttered, two hands holding onto the wrapper as if it were made of glass.

"The last one's for Frankenstein, isn't it?" Takeo asked.

Raizel nodded.

"Grapefruit's awesome, Sir…make sure you don't tell him we're drinking coke down here, please."

Raizel nodded.

* * *

A flurry of agitated voices blared out from Frankenstein's office, and Raizel felt uncannily wrong listening in to the conversation. He didn't really, fully understand what was being said. Something about children doing 'exceptionally well in academics' and 'deserving better than what was provided currently.' What was the problem? Frankenstein's organisation of the school was impeccable…more detailed and intricate than he could presently comprehend. Raizel was deciding whether he should leave or not—he wasn't privy to this conversation and perhaps this was why Frankenstein had wanted him to be escorted home…but then something else drifted from under the cracks of the door.

 _Did…did they just insult Frankenstein for not hailing from this land?_

Well…they were right, Frankenstein was not from this land. But _he_ was also not from this land. Why should that hurt the performance of the school? Frankenstein was a mentor—a good one. It was bizarre.

More things blurred out from behind the door. _He didn't understand? What did Frankenstein not understand?_ Frankenstein's voice grew louder, matching the other person's and Raizel furrowed his brow. Things were getting clearer now. The other person was wrong. Frankenstein did, in fact, understand children's education, and did, in fact, understand the formalities of this place. Frankenstein had lived in this place longer than this other person had being alive. How could they fault Frankenstein for ignorance? It soon became apparent to him that this person had no regard to say the things he was saying. His words became foul.

Raizel eyed the sign on the door with all the intensity of a detective in an active crime scene. He was becoming increasingly fidgety…

Flagrant insults flew across the room.

Raizel clasped the door handle and wrenched it open.

"Who are you to decide that—"

"I'm the _Principal_ of this school, Sir."

"You—"

The foul-mouthed man turned to look back at Raizel, the clack of the door snapping his attention away. He dismissed him flippantly, blinking back to Frankenstein. "What is this, _Principal_ Lee?"

Frankenstein wiped the look of stunned silence off his face, and pulled his eyes off Raizel in the door. "I believe we've gone over time, Mr Okyun. My decision was made before you could… _elaborate,_ " he answered, quaintly. " _No_. That's final."

"…I beg to differ—"

"Well, you can beg to differ elsewhere, Mr Okyun." Frankenstein folded his hands off his desk, and leaned back into his chair. "It's a free country, isn't it?"

He smiled generously, like a seasoned teacher to a little child. "We're finished here, Mr. Do you need help finding the door? Or should I alert security to aid you there? Might I remind you that security at this school is, thankfully, top-notch."

The man, Mr Okyun, fumed.

"Care for a demonstration?"

Mr Okyun stepped forward, placing a hand on Frankenstein's desk. "Listen here, Principal Lee. You must be—"

"If you say another word against Principal Lee. That would be unforgivable."

Frankenstein's blue eyes frowned up to meet red. His hands loosened from under his chin, and an arm thudded on the table.

"What?"

Raizel didn't even turn to look at the other man. His gaze was on Frankenstein. He talked past Okyun. "I will not stand by. As you insult my Principal. Mr Okyun," he said softly.

Okyun whisked his head back to Frankenstein, stared at his emotionless face, and then turned to face Raizel. The look didn't faze him. Raizel could see Frankenstein's languid hand slowly prick up into a fist.

 _Don't._

Blue eyes shuttered. He unfurled it. A smile plastered on his face, not a single, unbidden twitch in the corner of his mouth.

Raizel stepped one pace over, shifting to the side ever so slightly. "The door you are looking for is here."

The man's beady eyes flashed with anger. He headed to the door with one last frown at Frankenstein. "Control your school kids, Principal! My son won't be going to school with thugs." He exited.

Raizel raised a ringed finger, and the door swung quickly shut behind him. The second the door clicked safely shut, Frankenstein leapt to his feet a little too aggressively, making his seat wheel into the wall behind him (and surely denting it). Papers fluttered to the floor as he briskly moved before Raizel. "Master! I am _so_ —you shouldn't have had to see that." He belatedly flung an arm to his centre and bowed rigidly.

The calm demeanour fell away, and Raizel looked somehow equally flustered, "was that wrong of me? Should I wipe his memory?"

"No! I mean—thank you. It's fine." Frankenstein sighed, a tingle of a laugh in his voice. People taking the time to book in and colourfully insult him? Been there, done that—he could take whatever anyone threw at him without so much as blinking an eye. But he'd be damned to watch his Master be befouled by some man, in _his_ office. Insults, he could take. People insulting his Master—he couldn't.

"…What he called you was unwarranted. Mr Okyun is a terrible human."

"Aha, Master, really, you didn't need to step in. People like that—I've handled it on a daily basis since…the Dark Ages. I had it under control."

"I know. I…panicked."

Frankenstein simpered and motioned to the coffee table, then quickly turned away as he felt the temperature in his cheeks rise. Raizel sat down, grateful to look away for a moment. An array of beautifully cut glasses sat on the table. A larger, almost hour-shaped glass was filled with a clear, tawny-gold. He reached to pour them both a glass, but Frankenstein's discomfort poured into his mind. Frankenstein's startlement made his hand jolt. "That's not tea Master!—that's…"

Raizel recoiled, confusion swimming on his face. He was alarmed.

"That's…whiskey." Frankenstein bit down, realising he had to finish the sentence. Even if Raizel didn't know what the word meant, he'd get it from Frankenstein's head.

"…Oh."

Frankenstein set down a cup and saucer, and poured actual tea. The whiskey was promptly swept away and shoved into a cabinet.

"…"

"Alright, so maybe I like to down some people's mindless chatter with help, sometimes…though thats nowhere near enough to affect me, I…How are you, Master? Is there anything you came looking for me for?"

He was quick to change the subject. Raizel knew him, and knew he felt bothered when he stepped into such 'trivial things' or meddled in things he'd rather keep from him. That was why he never intruded on his personal thoughts, and he shied away from questioning…whatever it was he needed to hide, right now. Raizel's consternation was replaced by his usual aloofness.

"Do you like grapefruit?"

"Pardon? Master?"

The wrapper crinkled as he held out the remaining candy to Frankenstein. Frankenstein pulled back a sleeve, lifting the candy from him with a delicacy. _"Grapefruit._ Thank you."

"The real reason I came here…I didn't mean to intrude on your work, but you felt…distressed."

"I felt— _distressed?"_

"Perhaps you're tired. Perhaps you should return home earlier."

"Master…" A pang of warmth came over him again, but he didn't have the mind to look away. Frankenstein sighed with pleased embarrassment, forgetting to hide it for a second. A slight guilt tugged on him.

"I'm absolutely fine right now. Now that that Okyun has left. It's nothing—he wanted me to allow a grade skip for his child, but I won't allow it. Academic success is, of course, important—but I won't have a high schooler be thrown into a grade above them even if they can handle _calculus_. And I assure you, Okyun's child cannot…at this point in time." He fiddled with the candy wrapper. "Besides, they won't be able to handle the mental growth needed in such a short amount of time. Additionally, they don't have as much time contemplating their career paths or say—stay with those in the same age group. Skipping ahead may be appropriate in some circumstances, but not for that man's son…Charging ahead by yourself, no matter how ambitious you are—it's not all that fun in the long term."

"You won't let that boy end up alone. You want him to grow at his own pace."

"Sorry that you had to feel my annoyance, Master. I guess I might be…I've just been interviewing with people the entire day."

"It is fine." Raizel lied, before realising that he did. Frankenstein's cloudy aura draped him in a tense weariness, and he knew the interviews were not what was laying on his mind. Who was watching them?

 _Who was after him?_

He could feel those questions weighing down Frankenstein like a pile of bricks—still building up and rising higher around him as he still tried to continue his normal duties. His presence here, was a worry to him. Raizel didn't look up from his tea, but fondness flooded through their connection.

 _Do not worry._

No one touches the school. Nobody was going to lay a finger on his bonded.

"I was rude last night."

Raizel's eyes glowered in confusion. _No._ Frankenstein moved to sit opposite him. "Thank you. I want to thank you for what you said to me."

Raizel's cheeks began to slightly redden now. "I meant every word. There is no need for your thanks."

"I know. I know there's never a 'need.' But I want to."

"Hum. Hm…."

Frankenstein quickly moved to refill his cup. They sat in together, nothing but tea and timeless company, like before.

* * *

The door began to knock.

One slow rap, followed by three shorter raps.

 _Tock; toc, toc, toc._

Frankenstein placed down the tea with care. "One moment, please. I will be with you shortly!"

He turned to Raizel, his eyes gentle. "Master, I'm afraid you can't stay here during the next conference. Forgive me."

"No, it is time for me leave."

"Should I recall Regis and Seira to escort?"

"I can manage walking home myself." Raizel said, slowly. _Did that sound harsh?_ A small smile turned upon his lips. "You worry excessively. I will see you soon."

"Yes, Master."

Frankenstein nodded, relaxing a few notches. He opened the door, letting Raizel out.

"Goodbye."

A man with short, blonde hair stepped out of the way for him. Raizel nodded his thanks as he ambled past. The day was fading, and the lights on the corridors had already lit up. Outside his window, the blue skies had deepened into a quiet navy. Except for the last straggling conferences, the school was mostly deserted. Frankenstein held onto the door, motioning to the next parent. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr, please, step inside."

"Why, thank you, _"_ he simpered.

* * *

Rafa- Arabic: Happy, lightening, to shine, to flutter (as in bird fluttering) (please keep in mind this name is probs not accurate for the time frame -.-)

Simper- smile in a coy fashion

This chapter kinda seemed like it was all over the place haha. What I wanted was trio interaction, Rai defending Franken just because and everybody being fluffy with their grapefruit candy. I dunno. Uni's started for me, but I'll get up the next chapter asap.

Thanks guest, and eveRYBODY!


	5. The Omen Bringer

IMPORTANT: Viewer discretion is advised. I apologise I didn't put this up earlier, but I definitely ought to put up some warnings. Please beware of dark themes such as violence, gore, alcohol use, ptsd and trauma, depression, as well as swear words. Thank you.

* * *

 **16th Century**

 **Gregorian Calendar MDXXXVI**

 **Year 1536**

The Innkeeper

 **Florence,**

 **Italy.**

 _Well what do you know? Blood is red._

He watched, transfixed at the flow of scarlet tracing down his fingers and trickling between his knuckles before each drop broke away from the flow, hitting the ground. _Plick, plick._

 _Like teardrops,_ he smiled loftily.

 _So red._

The bristle of glass being swept up from under him lifted him out of his stupor, though only slightly. He peered up at the innkeeper, a veil of blonde hair shadowing his blue eyes. His attention focused before his sight did.

"Buon signore, are you alright?"

"…Perfectly."

"You're bleeding."

"Fervently."

He shuffled over, smudging blood over the table as he tried to sweep over the glass shards, fix his mess.

"No, no no, signore, please, let me handle it."

"Let you…" He looked up again. The old man stared back with a strange sort of concern under that pair of snowy brows.

"May I offer you my ears?"

"…You may offer me more wine—per favore," he added.

"Signore, forgive me, but I believe you've had enough for one night."

"That's the problem, isn't it? The night isn't even over."

He rocked backwards, throwing another one of his empty glasses over, tapping a bloody finger on the end. A few stray drops of alcohol dropped chunkily from the movement. He licked his lips. The glass was set down with a weighty clink, and the innkeeper frowned; the blonde man just stared. Through the dim light, he could make out a new crack on the bottom. He reached for another empty glass from the perfectly straight line he'd lined up. "Per favore."

The innkeeper didn't move towards the sullied glass and continued to wipe the table. The blood flow had stopped slower than expected.

"You've had too much to drink, signore—you've dropped your glass."

"No," he answered absently. He rested his chin into his hand, propping it up like a tired old man. As if he were much, much older than the innkeeper; as if he'd not even the energy to lift his head anymore.

"Ghastly of me—I forgot to control my…impulses. It only takes so much strength to break _glass."_ He frowned, looking mildly annoyed, but more like he'd remembered something he'd forgotten that became glaringly obvious now. The blonde man half-heartedly fixed it. "I've just got quite a grip. Excuse me."

The third glass was still held out before him.

The innkeeper went back to the glass shards. The blonde man watched the myriad of tiny lights reflected off the many-sides of each chip, dart and elongate as the innkeeper brushed it away from him.

"…I understand. I've outstayed my welcome. Mi scusi." He moved to leave, swaying a little.

"Signore."

"Oh. Yes, I have money."

"No. Why the drink."

"Why?"

The old man nodded wordlessly.

Blonde hair covered his face. A snigger. A traitorous upturn of the corners of his mouth. "You must have asked that to a trillion men like me here. What does it matter to you?"

"It doesn't."

The blonde man subsided, putting on a grin.

"It matters to you, signore, does it not?"

He stiffened.

What the hell was wrong with him? Was he suddenly going to start fraternising with innocent civilians? Tell his _sob story_ to the naive, not-so-old-man in a Florentine inn? He really was loosing his touch.

Or he really hadn't had enough alcohol.

Now was the time to leave. But suddenly, incredulously, he realised there was nothing holding him back—not with the alcohol in his system and Dark Spear nipping his seams. The world moved on, and he hoped no one would remember him, and certainly not here. He really was alone.

"I think about leaving, a lot."

"To where?"

"Out of this world."

"…"

That should scare the man off.

"Why?"

"Why….?"

Damn—why were some humans so…what he used to be. _Too many reasons. Too many regrets._ He felt so empty, like in his life, daylight was stripped, and there would only ever be the night to look up to. But the stars never shone and when they did they were mocking— filling up the skies with shiny constellations of window sills, of porcelain teacups, of cross-shaped earrings. He hated to sleep. So he hadn't done so for days. Weeks, even. He hated the way it left him vulnerable, the equivalent of giving himself over to anyone and everyone—never being able to wake up by his own will. In his sleep, he was unguarded and unconscious.

In his sleep, his wails gave rise to ghost stories.

"…I'm lonely," he shrugged.

The old man tilted his brows, "many of us are."

"I want…" he breathed out, exasperated at his own…whatever this was: weakness, idiocy or a just a damned whim.

"I want intimacy."

The innkeeper sat down opposite him.

"I miss…"

His throat felt wholly tight, and all of a sudden, he didn't want to answer. His heart stopped. Everything seemed to stop.

There was nothing right about him, no medicine or potion or antidote he could conjure up to fix himself and there was nothing logical about this little _escapade._ And for a man like him, there needed to be logic about everything. The words died in his throat. The old man laid his arms out onto the table.

"Intimacy. It's what we all want. You can find it, here, in Florence."

The blonde man unclenched his fist, tilting his head up, finally facing the old, younger man.

"You can speak to the Lord."

He snapped up rigid in an instant, and then with a sear of purple in his mind, a bitter crunch of his teeth, the blonde man knocked all sixteen, perfectly lined-up glasses to shatter over the floor. The old man swallowed tentatively. "Signore?"

"Who—how do you know _him!_ "

"God?"

"Go—"

 _Oh._ Not the old bugger. Not the damned Lord of Lukedonia.

 _Right._

 _Obvious._

"God?" he echoed, crawling back to his daze. The old man remained sitting. The blonde man curled his lips, dripping disdain. "That, is the most bullshit advice I've ever heard in the last—seventy years!"

 _Seventy?_

"I've said something wrong?" the innkeeper piped up, finally surprised by something of the strange stranger.

"No…no," he corrected. "You've said something pathetic."

"Enlighten me, then."

This man was _persistent._

But he was harsh.

"There is no such thing as a God," the blonde man said, simply, and kicked the chair away. It screeched across the floor, making the innkeeper wince. The faint sound of split wood cracked against the wall. He crouched to pick up the glass fragments, all three hundred and something pieces. They clinked against each other in different tones, growing cloudy from the sweat in his palms.

"Then find out yourself," the innkeeper said.

"Pardon?"

"Go. Talk. He may not be real to you, but perhaps, someone is listening."

"Talking won't help," he spat back.

"Hasn't this helped signore at all?"

The blonde man sat down again, on the floor, almost forgetting the three hundred shards beside him. _Oh._ For a few short minutes, he wasn't sitting alone in a faraway inn, in a faraway era, eons from where he wanted to be. He pulled out some notes from a pocket, and placed it on the least bloody side of the table. He drew back his hair.

"I'm sincerely sorry about the mess."

"Forget it."

"I will," he answered wistfully. He wished he could.

"Goodnight." The blonde man turned away.

"Good day," he heard the old, younger man say.

He wished he had the guts to thank him.

* * *

 **The Omen Bringer**

The guest's eyes brushed past him, and Frankenstein's expression crinkled for a millisecond. This man looked young. Obviously not Korean. Perhaps too young for a child in high school? He didn't want to assume. The man had short blonde hair, a lean figure adorned with a thin, tweed coat over a western attire. Vest, and tie. Intensely formal, though Frankenstein was still wearing the usual ebony suit with his usual long-tailed bow. They both took a seat at the office table. The entire time he'd entered, Frankenstein noticed his searching gaze hadn't lifted from him once.

"Anything to drink then? Tea? Coffee?" he offered, pushing his glasses further over his nose.

The guest took a seat. "Alcohol? Perhaps?"

Frankenstein almost flinched. His eyes ticked to the side. Asking for alcohol? In a school? To the principal?

"Oh, you'll pardon me!" the man was quick to add, "I can smell it in the room."

No. No he can't. How could he? Frankenstein knew how to mask—

"Whiskey?" he offered him. It didn't matter. Alcohol. Fine. _Let's just get this over and done with._ The glistening liquid was stamped onto the table, and he poured them both a glass. The man's eyes trailed around the office, over the walls. Newspaper clippings, photo frames and certificates bore no interest to him, but he gaped, wide-eyed as if it did.

"It's a beautiful school that you've built, Principal Lee."

"Thank you. It was my wish to create a school offering only the best facilities. You could say it was a dream project of mine."

"And one well achieved," the man said, chuckling a little. "I'm more than impressed. The success of your students really is a top priority here. Wonderful."

His words were empty, and Frankenstein could feel their vast emptiness almost tip over to him. The desk between them was a chasm. "So," Frankenstein asked, fingers twirling the cup once on the table, "I take it that you have booked a session to speak about the concerns of a student?"

The blonde man answered, "yes. Of course. I wouldn't dare waste your time, Principal." He finished his cup. The blonde man reached over the desk, lifting the whisky high above his head, and following it vacantly up. His eyes suddenly dropped, flitting by Frankenstein's stare before they fell onto the cups. He poured the whiskey from a metre height, careful not to spill. Droplets spat up. The cups were split up again and one lanky finger pushed one over to Frankenstein. A trail of liquid lugged over.

Frankenstein took it, steadily. He turned up his lips into a beam. "And who are we here to speak about today?"

The man placed down his drink, licking a corner of his lip.

"Rai."

Heat bloomed.

"I—"

A hand jammed under the blonde man's throat the second the word left his lips, and the force of the movement threw him across the room. His feet skidded a few metres when they touched down again, but it did nothing to break his slam as his back thudded against the far wall. _"Ngh-kgh!"_ His teeth crunched together, and he bit back the blood rushing up. His eyes twisted shut under a bolt of agony as realisation registered, and another, before he inhaled—replacing the air that was knocked out of him.

Blurry eyes shuddered open to see the principal's shaky silhouette haunched over the desk, both their chairs a far cry from the table. Another blink of his eyes, and a hand was at his throat again. In an instantaneous jolt, the Principal had closed the space between them, his nails scathing into skin with precise judge of strength. Just enough to let him retch. Enough to make him gasp.

Frankenstein loosened his grip, loosened his power.

It was as if the air had become dense, heavy under the pressure of rampant, buzzing static. Frankenstein leaned his nose into the sorry-man's face. The lights blinked on in the guest's eyes. Only smugness met Frankenstein back.

"Forgive me," came Frankenstein's polite voice, "I seem to have a bad ear today. Might you remind me who we're talking about again?"

"Of course! Class number 26. Homeroom teacher, Mr Park. Cadis Etrama di Raizel."

The man beamed through his teeth, inclining his head between Frankenstein's hot fingers. _"Rai."_

Frankenstein's hold squirmed around his neck. "And what concerns do you wish to speak about today?" Static chirped around him, making the tips of his long hair vibrate.

 _Crk._ His glasses cracked.

"I'm glad you asked, Principal Lee. I've come to deliver a warning."

Frankenstein smirked. Scorn dripped from him, sticky, and bitter.

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel, will die."

* * *

When the Lord, of all people, withdrew his soldiers and messengers and subjects back after many years, he proclaimed to the court, sitting cross-legged over his pretty throne, "we can no longer search for Cadis Etrama di Raizel."

He was present there, for that one declaration, and never so much did he want to rip noble throats, like he so wanted in his youth. He remembered hands on his shoulders, resting there in some miserable attempt at comfort, but the moment they touched down, he could feel every little thing that was wrong: too much weight, too little weight, wrong hand to wrong shoulder, wrong finger pressed at wrong intensity; he batted them off.

And then more hands grabbed at him, holding him back as he wrestled clan leaders to skid across the floor and out of his way; when he pushed an old man to the side, he didn't give a crap about Gejutel's warning. He slammed a noble to the floor, but when he got up agian, he didn't want Ragar's condolences. He stepped into the centre of the aisle, holding his head high, but when the Lord looked at him without a trace of his haughty, carefree demeanour, he faltered. The Lord smiled with a sorrowful face.

"I'm sorry, Frankenstein."

And the Lord meant it.

He turned and left, leaving the grounds of the aisle shredded. He wondered to himself, why he couldn't hate the Lord.

* * *

"He'll die?"

The words faded from Frankenstein's lips, tainting the atmosphere. Frankenstein's hand slithered down from his throat, and clasped a handful of his clothes. He lifted him with one hand, dangling him by the collar. Through clenched teeth, Frankenstein thinned his lips down to a line, narrowing his eyes as they set on the man's silhouette—blonde hair falling over closed eyes. He opened them. His eyes, amber-hazel, glaring cold and unmoving, parried Frankenstein's murderous, blue pools with equal force.

"Yes. _Well_ ….much sooner than you thought he was going to, anyway." The words rolled off his tongue, like a street vendor releasing his snakes.

Frankenstein edged forward, shoulders raised slightly, voice a semitone too low. Through teeth half-clenched and fingers itching to curl into fists, he swallowed. "Enlightening." His voice was sandpaper against stone. "Now then, traitor, care to _pray tell_ why you've brought this information to me, in my domain?" He paused, letting silence reign for a second too long. "If you want to scare 'the human', I suggest the less cowardly approach, and say what you want with me stark. Spare my petty feelings, won't you."

The corners of the man's lips twitched upwards, but he stood stoic, eyes unfazed and unblinking.

"Dear Frankenstein, you misunderstand me. Simply, I've come to warn you of his death in advance. He seems important to you, that's all. Is that not courteous of me? And what's more, Frankenstein, care to realise you addressed me glaringly wrong? I'm not one of your Master's traitors."

"Noble defector then? Same thing," Frankenstein spat.

Disdain rolled of the short-haired blonde man and for the first time, he looked guarded, as if he just figured out he was being dangled, feet of the floor, against framed newspaper clippings: _Ye Ran High—Student Tutoring Program Highly Successful._ But that was the last thing that agitated him. "Don't compare me to _them._ I'm the furtherest thing away from that."

Frankenstein could hear his teeth grinding from this distance. "Blonde werewolf? The runt of the family, are you?" His amber eyes flattened again, and the calmness returned. His face changed and Frankenstein watched the man burst into a smug, _smug_ smile.

"Human."

Frankenstein's grip tightened on his clothes, and he wrenched the man inches before his cracked glasses before slamming him against the wall again. The frames on the wall all shattered to the floor.

"You don't feel human, you don't smell human and you can't even _act_ human." Frankenstein's voice smeared contempt, and it fed off his aura.

"And you do?"

Frankenstein flinched. He stopped himself, just barely stopped himself, from slitting the guest's pale throat with a fiery talon. His hands hadn't dirtied with purple yet, but he was making a conscious decision to hold back.

"Ouch…that touched a nerve, you know. _I can't act human?_ Do humans all act like you then? Do all high school principals pin their school visitors to the office wall? Because I beg to d—"

His last syllable caught in his throat as Frankenstein tugged his collar sideways. With a swift, sharp pull, Frankenstein threw his visitor across the room—through the window. Glass flew awry. The frame splintered apart. Debris fluttered over the air.

 ** _"Frankenstein."_**

The word was whispered elsewhere with a fragility, yet it drew such a presence in the room that was unnerving to feel. For Frankenstein, the voice echoed loud in his mind, not yet a command but potent enough to pull the man from his violent set of mind. Within a second's notice, Frankenstein unfurled his accidentally formed fists, abandoning his last impulse to quell his killing intent. His aura was on the verge of spilling purple. Dark Spear writhed in waves at the seams.

' _Master,'_ he answered.

 _You are alright?_

 _"Yes, of course. I'm on my way home, is there anything I may bring back for you?"_

 _I heard glass shattering._

Frankenstein narrowed the presence in his mind, blurring their connection down. Like talking over the slim gap of the door.

"No, everything's fine, Master. A frame fell in my office, that's all."

 _I thought you were on the way home?_

 _"I am…I'm heading out right now."_

 _…_

 _"Are Regis and Seira with you, yet?"_

 _They are at the house. I did not want to distract M-21, Takeo or Tao._

 _"…Then I will see you momentarily, My Lord. Please excuse me."_

A rush of warmth flooded his link, and he smiled, shutting the door on it with all the care in the world. Frankenstein then dived for the radio chip hidden on his desk. "Takeo, Tao, M-21?" Static simmered.

"Boss? Need us?" It crackled again. _No._ He couldn't tell them the truth. Whoever that man was, he was after him, not anyone else. His Master was stable at the moment, but that warning had startled him. He needed to play it safe for now—keep it from the trio, and so keep it from his Master. Once he'd snapped the man's spine, then it was safe to tell. Besides, he was still acting within orders, right?

 _No Dark Spear; no breaking the seal._

It would hardly come to that, anyway.

He spoke into the chip. "No. But Master should be about home now. I want you to go meet up with him right away. This is my last conference, and I'll be back soon…Be sure to stay with him."

The signal spiked. "You sure? Ok then. Anything else? _Can he be a little more cryptic?_ " a different, hushed voice said in the background. _"Wait a—he didn't call us to walk him back?"_

"M-21 just go and make sure Master gets a _real_ dinner."

The second voice quietened. The first voice spoke up, "got it, later Boss. We'll catch up with him now—"

A crunch of plastic sounded, and the radio chip blinked dead between his fingers. Frankenstein let it fall in pieces next to the mess. He eyed the empty office. It lay almost opaque, heavy with that choking aura that had been slowly encircling him these past days. He collected his power, careful not to stir Dark Spear. This was their stalker, for sure. A dark projectile through their brain, and Frankenstein would take the entire household out to a fancy dinner. Or perhaps tomorrow?—he hadn't booked.

"Now, where were we, _human?"_

Frankenstein turned to see his wrecked window, frame jutting out with glass poured all over his floor. The thousand tiny pieces gleamed up at him, shining spotlights onto the ceiling and making him twitch. He glared through the opening. The man glared back, holding his stare from mid-air. In a leisurely movement, the man pushed a hand into a pocket, and tugged out a triangular black cloth. He slipped it over his face, covering everything below his eyes. He fastened it tight behind his head. Frankenstein's blue eyes iced over again. The centre of his mask was split down the middle—tip of the nose down to the chin—with a trail of red, red thread. It criss-crossed over in short lengths, like messy stitches holding his face together. It clicked. _Incredulous._ He exhaled, strenuously.

"So, modified-human then? My _manners,_ these days, you'll have to forgive me. I thought otherwise because of the way you speak, the way you walk, the way you _breathe…"_

"Like I'm not from the twenty-first century?"

"…"

"Certainly though, you're not as young as you look, either, _Frankenstein?"_

"Hn. You know me. But I have yet to know you," he said, heartily.

The man grinned over his mask through the broken window. "Call me Faust."

 _Faust._ Frankenstein's aura heated a few degrees. _"What?"_ he breathed, _"you don't want me to just call you,'The Monster?"_

"My business is done here, anyway. I've given you the warning. I promised I dare not waste your time, right? I bid this worth it. _Farewell, Professor Frankenstein."_

Anger reached his eyes, dimming them further. The man that called himself 'Faust' leapt away, out of sight. Frankenstein's strides cracked over the glass-ridden floor, and without another half-thought, he flung himself out the window. He twisted to sneer as Faust turned, him hot on his tail.

"Being thrown out of the window doesn't dismiss you, Faust— _the Principal does!"_

* * *

Thank you. Chapter 6 up next week.

EDIT: So, I created a deviant art account to stick up my sketches of Faust ( art/Untitled-594493734). However, I know you can't copy and paste from here, so I put up the same link on my profile where you can just click hehehe.


	6. Anger Management

**16th Century**

 **Gregorian Calendar MDXXXVI**

 **Year 1536**

Cathedral

Cattedrale di Sant Maria del Fiore

The Duomo Cathedral

Florence,

Italy.

It marvelled him that humanity had finally begun to escape the suffocating, iron grip of the Dark Ages, and was heading for what he'd always wanted for the world. Science, medicine, philosophy and critical thinking: though they would still be persecuted, they'd cease to be stomped out so easily now. The age of the Renaissance was dawning upon Europe, and Frankenstein could hardly believe the leaps and bounds his people had made—if they could still be considered 'his people—' with or without him in the shadows.

It hardly mattered that he himself was a non-believer, standing before the greatest construction of Florence had a harrowing effect. The great Duomo Cathedral: something that could put the architecture of Lukedonia to shame. He smiled to himself—suddenly reminded of that time he'd first stumbled across a scrawling mansion deep within the woods. A colossal form so grandiose it blot off the stars and challenged the very moon; it's spires black silhouettes that invaded the skies, dispersing clouds. He remembered it well, running through the wilds like humanity depended on him—only to stop and marvel in the midst of a chase.

It was the best decision he'd ever made.

 _What?_

Frankenstein wrenched back into reality. This was different. The sun hovered just above the horizon, bathing the circular dome in a dulled vermillion, and it glowed brazenly, igniting daylight. Frankenstein watched, wondering how he could have forgotten something as simple and constant as this. The colour of embers poured out of the skies, creeping onto the sides of the cathedral until the people around him were basked in the early morning too.

And Frankenstein remembered why he came here.

The cathedral was beautiful.

Florence, was beautiful.

So beautiful, he almost wanted to live.

The great search had bought him to the far reaches of the Americas, the reigning empires and then the Asian dynasties. Frankenstein had half-scoured the earth and most of it's islands, watching civilisations compete and crumble and evolve around him— he was in the centre of it all, moving ceaselessly in and out with the tide, the world chiselling him in it's fashion. He'd changed, or maybe changed back: he was jaded and surly, a cruel man, and time didn't care in the slightest. He had begun to believe the lies passed down about him.

But Frankenstein was impressed when he returned to Italy, especially of this city, Florence, after a century or so.

"Your contribution? Signore?"

A couple of coins clinked against the silver cup. The clergyman gestured him inside.

He entered the cathedral. A series of columns rose from the tiled ground, curving over near the roof to form a walkway of arches, mirroring each other on either side, and Frankenstein was greeted with the wide, open hall of the airy cathedral. He could tell no expense was spared: the slabs of rock used were singular, the changes in the hues carefully infused, and he was stepping vacantly over the most intricate mosaic floor he'd ever seen.

It was darker in here than he'd imagined, but his attention was soon gripped by the ray of red flooding from the hollow dome. A circular opening saw the dawn stream into the hall, and it really looked…otherworldly. He stepped down the hall, passing men on their knees and more with crosses, not sparing a glance.

 _Why did I come here?_

All of these people, were they like him? Lost and pathless, unable to face another dead end? It must be good, to be able to believe in something as arbitrary as this.

He wondered. _Do they feel…intimate?_

Frankenstein neared the rows of seats under the dome, and sat down after having no idea what else to do. He wondered. A few rows back, a woman had her hands weaved together, her head bowed over, muttering a prayer. She looked serene. A man to his far side was sitting, staring, charmed perhaps by the ray of light streaming in or the statue of Christ before them. He looked melancholy. Dozens of others littered the seats, conversing with their god, asking for their own truths.

Frankenstein looked ahead.

He didn't believe and he never would. Suddenly, he felt idiotic. _Some guy at the inn tells you to look for what? God? And you actually go ahead and do it?_

 _Absolutely embarrassing._

He didn't move. The people around him mumbled up a chorus of whispers, and he hated it. They were praying. They were begging. And he'd never beg to anyone.

But he had.

Sometimes, he reached down, deep, deep within himself, and he'd feel for that touch of red: that gentle lull of a presence in his mind—far away from Dark Spear, and much, much thinner. Like holding a heartbeat between his fingers, it was small, yet penetrating. It was serenity; sometimes, when he closed his eyes and the nightmares didn't come, he could reach for it and sometimes, he could find it again. Fragile and tiny, like a single thread that tied them together. It was delicate and warm, it's gentle aura flickering irresolute, eluding him from time to time. But when he felt it—when he was deep enough to be lost within himself—it was hope. He would stay alive.

Because _he_ was still alive.

Frankenstein peered behind him and turned back too quickly. Suspiciously, he hovered his hands like he didn't know what to do with them before he settled—weaving his fingers together like the lady did. He looked to the side. All around him were moving lips. He let go of his logic.

"….Master…"

 _Weeping hell, he felt like some imbecilic child!_

The word lay heavy on his lips. It felt familiar, though he hadn't said it for long, _long_ time, almost like finding a dear memory—something that mattered. He thought of him, only him, and Frankenstein forgot where he was.

 _"…_ _Master…_ " he breathed.

"I…I don't know if you can hear me. Why do I—I've absolutely no valid basis to suggest that you can hear me right now…I mean, you probably can't and I'm just being…"

He trailed off.

"I just… _where are you_?" He looked up, expecting something, but didn't know what.

"You know…you know I've been looking for you all this time? Right? You must know." He looked down, ashamed.

"I guess I just…I wanted to talk. I really…" Frankenstein paused. He realised _what exactly_ he was going to say and in some part of him, he was glad he might only be talking to himself.

"I want to hear your voice again. Lord, its been so _long._ I'm so afraid that I'll—that I'll just _forget,_ one day…the sound of your voice."

He clenched his eyes shut.

"I've never felt so afraid—what if, what if I have forgotten it already? If you called me would I still know to answer? Call my name. Call me to you. _I don't want to forget."_

The ray of light had moved on, casting the dome into shadow.

No one answered.

 _"…_ _Fuck."_

His intwined fingers fell apart, and he dropped down, a hand covering his face, _covering his shame._

 _"_ _Fuck._

 _"_ _Fuck!"_

He inhaled.

"…Look. I can't bring myself to eat. I can't ever go to sleep— _not real sleep_. I can't help Dark Spear, I can't stand still or make things right and I wake up and I wake up and you're still gone!"

He didn't move. The sound of his rage echoed up the dome. The dozen people shifted, pretending not to hear. Probably out of courtesy. He didn't dare look up. But nobody bothered him.

He removed his hands, resting them wryly in his lap, blue eyes following the movement.

Frankenstein tensed up again. "I'm not like them. Lukedonia has stopped looking. The old bugger, Gejutel, Ragar, Roctis…they've stopped searching. But I will never abandon you.

"I will wait. I'll never…abandon you."

The woman behind him had left, and so had the man to his side. Frankenstein sat amid empty chairs. Strange echoes whispered against the hollowness the cathedral, and he listened to them, drifting afloat with the sounds.

"…Master. Come back.

"Please come back. _Come back._ Come-come back…

 _"_ I beg of you."

He felt the connection. Constant, yet fleeting, it emanated within him, making him morose; but it was hope.

 _"_ _I beg you, Master."_

It made him hopeful.

* * *

"Perhaps a candle to voice your prayers, signore?"

"Considering I've wallowed in sentiment all the decade, why not?" Frankenstein answered, matter-of-factly.

He picked a candle, and when no one was looking, pressed two fingers onto the fuse. A black fire flounced alive, and it flickered like a cackle, a deep purple bursting from the fuse before the flame died down a slight. Its colour lightened, burning into a normal orange. Frankenstein set it down with all the care of a man of few possessions, amid a hundred other glowing flames.

Then he lowered his eyes, feeling foolish, _but not as foolish as walking into here in the first place._ Frankenstein touched his hand to his heart, and when no one was looking, he bowed.

"Master."

He never returned again.

* * *

"Signore, may I suggest lighting a candle?" the clergyman offered, holding out a generous basket.

A man clad in white, _odd thing to wear,_ with a strange sort of scarf, black, with curious red stitching, towered over the simple man. "Signore?" The cathedral keeper looked into his eyes. His mind went blank. A deep amber pervaded him, striking an eerie coldness over every nerve of the delicate human, and he exhaled into the changed air. He was unable to move.

 _"_ _Sleep."_

The human fell down, dropping the basket of candles over the floor.

Crueller and colder, the man—white-clad and amber-eyed— lifted a single candle from the stand. He lingered there for a moment, watching it dance.

 _Tssss._

It flared purple, before he snuffed it out.

* * *

 **Anger Management**

 _Cadis Etrama di Raizel, will die._

The first fuming, black bolt hit a stack of iron beams hanging stories-high, and the force of the hit sent the beams wobbling dangerously from side to side. It unbalanced. The head of a steel crane bowed from the highest story, and the stack of beams shook to one area, bringing it down. Metal scraped metal in midair. The weight of the fall was a heavy clang of rock and iron—enough to make Frankenstein's ears ring.

Faust studied the destruction, eyes widening a centimetre before falling back into their usual misty veneer. He leaped towards the construction site and Frankenstein followed. The second bolt sparked at the corners of Faust's coat, but he flit away, ducking into the unliving city. Nothing lived here and the battalion of workers that laboured amongst those numbered alloys and concrete mixers in the day were all gone by now.

He was free, for the most part. Save one detail.

Dark Spear.

"I'd have thought your first instinct was to run to him. Not me."

Another purple blast crinkled away at the rock where Faust stood—and he was gone again.

 _Frankenstein's first instinct was to splinter his collarbone._

"Do you really care? You don't even know when he's going to die? He might drop dead sooner rather than later."

Frankenstein cocked his head without moving his eyes, bringing his hands before him. His energy began to beat through his muscles, slow and methodical and building, building, until his skin began to crawl and his vessels began to pop: no longer flowing red. A slew of javelin-like extensions merged out from the tight atmosphere and even the air became claustrophobic. Magenta gathered into solid, black rods. They concentrated into a dangerous purple. Frankenstein invoked his powers to spread and each lightning-tipped rod coiled, barely held back against the enemy. But they still felt flimsy to him, not enough power stuffed into them. He wouldn't dare draw upon more.

"You don't have the luxury to worry about anyone else," Frankenstein announced, brows pricking.

He sent his materialised weapons into Faust's general direction. The construction site loomed under the cackling violet-illuminated projections, casting gangling shadows over the rubble. They elongated in the split second his power rained over, and withered down into blackness even quicker. Frankenstein's pupils contracted and dilated with it. The site was levelled into a wide dust-basin, stab-wounds scattered over the grounds as the dark projections wilted with an arch of his chin. No one would be moving into this area anytime soon.

"…Get the hell out where I can see you. Or are we to play hide and seek in this place?"

"If so, you're it, Professor."

Frankenstein's insides spiked. With a heave of his power, he cracked his shoulders back, pushing aura through the dirty haze. It ripped back the layers of dust-thick smog, circling him in a perfect clearing of uncontaminated air. Like the hollow middle of a dying tornado. Faust and Frankenstein stood, drinking each other in. It felt off. Frankenstein clicked a knuckle. Then another, and another. He tucked in his thumb, making that crack echo across the newly barren grounds slowly. He looked unbothered, untouched. But he wasn't untouchable. Faust was seemingly mesmerised. He stood far away from the angered man, yet he was still the closest person for miles.

Frankenstein turned his attention from his fingers to Faust's masked face. "Fine. I'm impressed. It's applause-worthy. I've never had another human stand up to me…and live, for this long."

"I'm honoured!"

"I'm still going to murder you."

"I gathered."

Frankenstein moved to crack his neck. He was growing more restless by the moment. How could this man still be standing? A _human_ —he wasn't lying. A couple hundred years ago this would have been the best news to ever grace him. But now, how could he not had been aware of such a powerful figure? Even someone as careful as Frankenstein left a trail of scorched breadcrumbs where he went through the ages, and this man—he's invisible?

 _Screw it. Stop—doting,_ he dragged those thoughts from his mind, only to be invaded by another. Faust's reflective eyes twinkled.

 _Master will die?_

Master was already dying. Thanks to his excessive sentencing of tiresome old nobles. It was obviously said to rile him. But it didn't matter. That was still going to lay on his mind now, no way to shake off the thousand minuscule 'what if's,' and 'otherwise's' that was wedging themselves in the crevices of his brain, right this moment. It worked, he was riled, and Frankenstein wanted his blood. "I'll be disappointed if you work for Crombel."

"Crombel?" Faust slanted his neck.

"As much I'd love to believe otherwise, you're part of the Union. And as pathetic as they are, the humans were long overrun by noble traitors and wayward werewolves." Which was, _everybody_ , since that Maduke had assumed the throne.

"So are you trying to get revenge for your superiors?" Frankenstein clicked his neck, "Urokai? Zarga? Or whoever… _sorry, didn't want to assume—whatever_ elders…the man-bat, the praying mantis…which one of them did you work for?"

Faust lifted his hands, gesturing. "Ah. Crombel. He's the Thirteenth Elder. Got promoted recently, him. It slipped my mind. I don't usually get to converse with such members."

 _He didn't align himself with the only other human elder? This man was kept a secret, even to those in the Union._

Faust folded his arms. "Why did you think I was simply out for… _their trifling little_ revenges?"

"As much as I hate to admit it," Frankenstein strained, "the Union is not stupendous enough to send one man after me. There are limits, you know, to idiocy."

"Ah." Faust loosened up. His eyes smiled again. "Then Professor- "

Something viscid like lava, yet still shocking like lightning, fractured the dust-filled grounds, splitting the earth under Faust until a ravine shook open. He slipped away. Faust swivelled, spinning on his heel and leaning to avoid certain death—Frankenstein's blows sped past his coat, singing it purple. Just enough distance to flit away at the last moment, while still feeling the heat of his power light up his face. Their fourteen-minute history repeated itself. Again, and again, Faust evaded Frankenstein's attacks like a dance: ducking down, banking left, tilting his head nine degrees and nothing would touch him.

Frankenstein's dark aura past him by, obliterating stone slabs into beach sand and corroding metal beams into pieces; the construction site around them, disintegrated. The skeletons of new buildings shook the place as they shattered onto the ground, creating a booming crash that could be heard for miles. A cloud of debris blot into the air. Faust was still leaping away, dark aura lapping behind him. His silence made him look like some dramatic pantomime, backdropped against city destruction. His amber eyes darted and widened in mock-fright as he missed another near shot.

No energy wasted, no movement useless. Just _enough._

Frankenstein gasped for a breath, and then sharply quietened. He shouldn't be out of breath like this. Did he use that much energy? _Wait._

He lifted from his tunnel vision. City destruction? _City obliteration._ Faust was doing this on purpose. He'd led Frankenstein to stray further and further from the construction site, and now dark projections lapped at the ebbs where the living were. Faust snagged around, locks of golden hair shadowing his face.

Frankenstein couldn't catch him like this. He was too fast. Too smart. Too reserved. He knew how to fight and right now, not to fight. And that drove Frankenstein to fury. His fingers were smouldering, charred-black by Dark Spear's constant licking, and he couldn't even spare attention to bicker them down.

A couple more rage-filled beams, and a lit apartment complex could have come crashing down.

Killing hundreds.

Faust had known from the beginning and Frankenstein balked at his own stupidity—running head-on into this warped game of cat and mouse. As the city lights blinked on and the horizon died down, the more and more he did this, the more and more he felt like the mouse in this game. A scuttling mouse humoured by a cat with amber-glowing eyes. He'd ran straight into this and he was completely unable to restrain himself.

Frankenstein was seething hotter and hotter; whether it was just him or Dark Spear too, he didn't know. Right now he could hardly care and although it worked against him, he wanted to feel their heat. There was a furnace inside him and he burned hate to fuel the fight. Anger could radiate off of him and it had been long ago, the last time anyone had made him this agitated.

Centuries.

"…I think you're getting sloppier. You hardly touched my coat there."

"Ghastly of me!" his voice scraped against his teeth. Frankenstein flung another careless, yet directed blow at him. He bared a toothy grin, masking the near-miss with a gleeful face. He readied for another.

"Useless."

Faust skipped over the disarray of broken buildings, landing neatly on a mountainous pile: cement and brick and mortar. Dust was still settling around him. Frankenstein lifted a partially stained hand, inciting sparks. They hummed in frenzy, flickering forth from between his fingers.

Something changed. They sizzled to an abrupt stop. Frankenstein's hand flinched to his side, scattering the purple coils.

"What?" Faust cocked his head up upon the mound. "Did you hit curfew?"

Frankenstein didn't move. Faust shrugged, lazily drawing his vision to the side. Behind him, the living city was close. He stepped down, simply walking off the rubble, testing flat surfaces before he put his weight on it. Faust sauntered across the stage of junk, walking slowly, simply, right before Frankenstein.

"You can't catch me like this."

Frankenstein held his stare, hands at his sides. The corners of his lips betrayed him, and they turned up for a split second.

"Perhaps…" Faust continued. His masked smirk reflected in his burnished eyes, "you should release your seal."

Gravity shifted in Frankenstein, and Faust mirrored his reflex: both of them swivelling and desperately hurling their weight to strike the other from behind—but they were equally swift. Pressure cut between them, and their energies forced each other apart like opposite polarities. The rebound rasped against the earth.

Frankenstein lunged back, purple blazing around him. He recovered first, about to throw himself back into the enemy. But a glint passed though the grounds, and he shuddered to a stand-still. Faust had summoned his aura for the first time to break his fall. Frankenstein's eyes contracted. Encircled in a pale, glaring gold, Faust's aura drenched the grey expanse in light.

Their contact lasted a mere second, but Dark Spear had tasted gold. Dark Spear churned within their fleshy confines, simmering dead and alive at its vigour. Sapphire eyes brightened to sky-blue before they dilated back into darkness. But it was too late. Dark Spear had latched onto the radiation. Purple flecks ate away at the brink, like dozens of blinking mites infesting over the glow. Gold hues merged and decayed. The light waned, quickly withdrawing back into Faust's slumped body. They stood amid the night once again.

Faust was powerful.

 _Hell, he was powerful!_

And Frankenstein wanted nothing more than the satisfaction of this fight. Faust's bones bending under his grip...

He could take him easily if he just drew on a _little_ more of himself.

"I'm waiting."

Frankenstein bared his teeth.

"Beat me, or lose, Principal Lee."

"You're high enough up the Union ladder to know of my seal?" Frankenstein's voice was poisonous. "What number are you? Pray tell?"

Faust's amber eyes darkened into cold, cutting coppers. His mask failed to conceal his smile. "Nothing."

"Straight answer, Faust."

"I mean it. Nothing. Nil. Zero. I am the Zeroth Elder."

 _Zero?_

 _Elder?_

What did that mean? He was human, he was old…old enough to be a founder of the Union? No.

"Your seal, Frankenstein. You can't touch me without it."

Frankenstein balked, sending another haphazard blast where Faust last stood. Faust only sighed. "Wait."

His power and mannerisms mirrored Frankenstein's. He looked befuddled, exaggeratedly so.

"Don't tell me… _hehehehehh_ —you can't use your power because you're not…allowed to?"

No reply.

Faust began to chuckle.

"Heheh… _hehehehe…_ "

Faust's face contorted, projecting a maniacal laugh. His hands flit up to grasp his clothes as if grappling at a fitful itch within him. The sound of his laugh echoed around the dirty vastness. Gawping down on Frankenstein from where he stood, Faust recovered from the fit.

" _Ahahaha_ …heheh, _oh,_ I'm sorry. Professor, for you to abide by that noble…this—this is what the great and righteous Frankenstein has been reduced to?"

Frankenstein couldn't keep his charade of calm. His fists clenched and unclenched and clenched again, claw-ish nails spotting blood that Dark Spear sucked at.

"Wagging your tail, to a _noble?"_

He snapped.

* * *

 ** _We curse you._**

* * *

Frankenstein lurched upon Faust.

He was so angry, but deep down from inside the furnace, Dark Spear snaked their way up through fire and tangled themselves around his spine. They whispered in his ear:

 ** _Who are you so angry at?_**

"FAUST!"

No more dark projections flew.

This time, Frankenstein flounced atop a chiseled ledge in one leap, wrenching his stained fist into Faust's centre. He'd caught him in one go. They skidded on the edge, _fist in stomach,_ Frankenstein splitting concrete with Faust's back.

 ** _You lie…._**

 _"Hnnnnh—"_ His hair fell over his eyes.

Something stung his knuckles before a sharp pain drove up Frankenstein's black-stained hand. He winced. Light emerged from Faust's wound. He was blinded for a second and leapt back onto a crumbling balcony. He threw his head up. Faust's wounds were knitting together in inhuman speed, and Frankenstein watched his golden aura travel out from the closing wound into his palms.

The aura tingled in his own skin. Where had Frankenstein felt this feeling before? His throat became incredibly dry.

 ** _You're a liar, Frankensstein…_**

 _"Mgghh!"_ Frankenstein stumbled back, hitting the far wall. His dark hand flew up to press into his forehead. _"Sshut up!"_

 ** _Who are you so angry at? Who are you so angry at? Who are you so angry at?_**

Their voices whispered in scattered echoes, and they funnelled up in him, a mass of deafening noise, and Frankenstein couldn't hear Faust shout his name.

In warning.

"FRANKENSTEIN!"

A bright, yellowish bolt of energy struck him square in the shoulder, and he let out a cry through clenched teeth. The balcony crumbled beneath him, and Frankenstein plummeted into the ruins below.

 ** _Who? Who are you so angry at? Who is it? Who-are-you-so-angry-at? Fffrankenstein who are you so—angry at?!_**

"MYSELF!"

Faust flinched. Frankenstein's voice broke a little.

 _Now can you all shut up?!_

They started giggling.

Their voices rang in his ears and broke his protective walls and suddenly, nothing mattered right now and everything was funny to him too.

He was angry. Angry at Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, at Dark Spear's laughing, at Faust's power, at Faust's warning, his threat to everything he'd built but most of all—above all—he was angry at himself. He really couldn't resist this fight, could he? He was beyond fury to admit this air of twisted familiarity. It was a reversal of roles. It should be Frankenstein who taunts and manipulates, Frankenstein who should have the upper hand. Yet this was the opposite, the _complete opposite_ of his own trademark strategy. Push the right buttons, tickle some insecurities and when they lost composure, he danced his way to victory. Something else other than Dark Spear squirmed in his gut and they leapt to embrace it. Humiliation amplified inside him ten-fold, shoved into his face, and Frankenstein used it to quell his purpling arms. He can't play into the enemy's hand again.

"We're done," Frankenstein gritted, "with cat and mouse."

"Oh?"

He lifted his wry smirk.

"Hnnnn." A long finger stroked down the red, cross-hatching stitches on Faust's mask. "I guess I'm done with you then, Professor."

Purple fire landed again where he stood, but Faust lurched away again. Not a second to spare. Faust darted at the last moment, but when Frankenstein could move just as swift, he could follow his movements. Faust's red-stitched mask passed Frankenstein. His eyes widened in jeering. In his malicious half-face, Frankenstein thought he saw himself.

 ** _No, he's better, Professor._**

 ** _Better…than…you._**

 _"Faust…"_ Frankenstein wavered, knees weak. The seal was in pieces.

 ** _Because he's riiiiiiiiiiighht. He doesn't bow_**

 ** _to Noble_**

 ** _scum._**

* * *

For centuries, he shut them out.

Frankenstein used Dark Spear lesser and lesser in those lonesome years, even when there was no one to tell him: no. It was a gradual process, something slow and waning like drying-up wells, but the longer he went without Dark Spear's caress, the more he might have described himself— free.

He got smart. He realised the name-callings he had received quite often were starting to get to him. And yet, he couldn't get enough of it. Frankenstein couldn't get enough of their insults. Whether they were from the humans or nobles or the ghosts inside him, he listened. He craved them. He felt he deserved them, deserved to be buried with them. Is that why he always acted the way he did? A cruel man. A harsh man.

His dreams didn't come as often. But the moment he retired from his retirement, Dark Spear clung to him like an old lover. He took one of their many dark hands, and smiled. The more and more he used them, the more and more they hurt.

He was a contradiction.

* * *

 _"How could I?"_ he breathed, inaudible.

 _"How dare I?"_ His knees creaked but he'd die before he let Faust see him crumple.

Control had slipped out of his fingers like trying to hold water in his palms, like trying to catch smoke with bare hands. Happiness murmured underneath his flesh, a euphoric excitement washing over him like a chill, but it was hot. He felt traitorously gleeful with Dark Spear's applause, one joyous shriek joined in by another, and another, and another.

Frankenstein winced. _"Don't!"_

A standing ovation rung in his ears. ** _Frankenstein?_**

 ** _You're free now, free to—_**

"I didn't ask for you! I don't need you here to pester me! Get the hell back. Get—"

"Professsor?"

Dark Spear simmered down to hear Faust.

Frankenstein lurched up a fist, but it was purple-tainted. He recoiled, beating it back down.

 _Get-away-getawaygetawaygetawayy…_

He'd done it. He'd done the unthinkable. Frankenstein immediately clamped down on his own powers, searching desperately to realign the seal. He balked at himself, mouthing curses as Dark Spear cursed him, nothing but anguish and fright—he'd utterly, arrogantly, _moronically_ skipped into the trap. Defeated by his own choice manipulation—a taste of his own medicine. Too late now. There was no way in hell Raizel didn't feel his power emit. Faust had him in his web and knew exactly which sticky thread to twang and bounce, make him dance. He was playing for this all along. He'd forced Frankenstein to break the seal.

"Should I…leave you two alone?" Faust asked, contemplatively.

Frankenstein lugged his sight up to Faust. Dark Spear, he had thrust back into their cage. Faust stood above him, nothing but flapping coat against white moonlight. But the mask on his face loomed red thread in taunting. The amber in his eyes stared down in contempt.

 _"Get down here…"_ Frankenstein smiled, a tingle of a laugh breaking through. _"Get down here, Faust."_

"I think I still want to talk about Rai. I spent all that time booking a conference for him."

 _"Get…down…h-"_

"Why is he so special?"

Frankenstein cracked a sneer. _"Tch."_

"I mean, he's cute, doing math equations, eating soft serves and playing dress up. But he's the pinnacle of noble-kind. Powerful, high and mighty. Everybody just _adores_ him, everybody has to bow their head at his feet. Why do you join in?"

He could almost hear Frankenstein's teeth scrape, like nails on chalkboard.

"He's disgusting. I find him disgusting. He might be able to snake charm those humans—the weaker, defenceless ones, _they just can't help it_ ….but you're pathetic." Disdain rolled off of him in droves, chunky and pungent.

Frankenstein jolted with anger. Anger scalded into hate, scalded into a maggoty humiliation. He waited for Dark Spear to retort, but he had already pushed them down. He felt ugly all over. And now the quiet stung.

"The truth stings, doesn't it?"

Frankenstein's eyes jolted wide before they thinned. He began to brashly send up walls. "You don't know a half-fuck what you're talking about," he forced, "I want you to stop your tiresome broadway act and face me. Come down here, or I'll come up."

"And then what?"

"And then I'll pluck your eyes from-"

"-my head. Ok then. That's a plan. But then what? Are you going to summon your soul weapon? Are you going to try killing me? Again? We both know you can't."

Faust paused for a moment, pondering.

"Are you even _allowed_ to kill?"

"I'm not going to let you live. On my life, I'm not letting you live."

"The truth is, Professor Frankenstein," Faust chided, pointing his toes up as he leaned on his heels, "I feel dirty for just witnessing how low the _Great and Powerful Oz,_ has stooped to. What happened? Did you tire of leading the human race? Did you tire of being in control of your own fate?" A sigh escaped. "How the great have fallen."

Faust drew his head back, coppery irises skimming the man over. His voice didn't quite match his eyes.

"You're nothing more than a _slave."_

* * *

 _Say something._

 _Say something._

 _Think._

Leaning there, pathetic and overwhelmed, he could almost hear them say, hear them march, all pitchforks and permits, _"down with the sorcerer, down with the devil's slave!"_ but he didn't have energy to flee anymore. Not even from a memory or Dark Spear's taunts, fused into an illogical mesh in his head.

Frankenstein's eyes popped open and then clamped shut. He had to control his anger. His mind balled at his words, racing—he wanted to defend himself, needed to defend himself, but his shields lay in pieces at his feet. He'd lost. He'd been ridiculed.

Frankenstein lifted his head to see the one who'd beat him.

Amidst the skeletons of the construction site, tangled phone lines and junk-yardish piles creaking strange sounds, Faust was gone.

He breathed in the grit of the ruins.

* * *

clergyman- agent of the church

The deleted title for this chap was 'Ghost town, no town.'

Aaaaaaand Dark Spear has arrived...

'Read on' guest, hello and thank you so much for your reviews! Ahaha you're very perceptive ;D Nope, I'm glad you're liking the flashback, but don't worry, plenty more to go around. The flashbacks from now on-ish are not linear anymore, so we'll be time period jumping. (However, the kids don't have a big role in the story, sorry.) 'Franky's eyes are like the sky and the ocean- all things Rai would look at but never experienced much until now- this! :O you are right!

'wow' guest- thanks for the review:) Read on?

Also, Argonautica, you continue to make me want to cry thank I love you.

Laryna6, love you too.


	7. Nightmare For Two

IMPORTANT: Viewer discretion is advised. Please beware of dark themes. Thank you.

* * *

 **Unspecified time**

 **1000+ years ago,**

 **Lukedonia.**

Nightmare for two.

They were both tragedies before they found each other.

The mansion — inhabited by two people, two souls — was loudest in the night. When Frankenstein was asleep.

He'd sheltered a running man, running from everything — the Clan Leaders, the humans, the dead, and himself. " _Frank…kenstein_." He gave his name, " _Cadis Etrama di Raizel,"_ waiting for him to forget it as soon as he could and keep running. Years drifted idly by and he was still here: unfazed by the nobles and fearless in presence of the Noblesse.

But Cadis Etrama di Raizel knew he feared other things.

In the dead of the night, sometimes, he'd hear the wails of a breaking man resonate off the hallways, ring down the corridors and he wouldn't see another thing out his window. He'd stay there, of course. He knew the human would hate for any person to see him in that state, even if it meant for him to yell alone in a locked room, in the furtherest wing of the mansion, in chains he'd bound himself, to the bedpost. The place furtherest from _him._

 _He wills not to be a disturbance. He wills to never show his weakness._

And that made the Noblesse turn away from his window.

Frankenstein thought he had hidden it well, his distress. He thought he could mask the whiteness in his skin, the quiver in his speech and the ghosts in his eyes.

He couldn't.

And sometimes, in the middle of the night, he could hear his call; though he mustn't answer, he mustn't go near him — no matter how much he wanted to help. Because that was what Frankenstein wanted — his ignorance, splendid ignorance — and Raizel must oblige. Nobles must not violate another's mind on a whim. But sometimes, _many times,_ his torment was deafening and Frankenstein didn't even know it himself: he projected his dreams onto him. So Raizel shared his sadness while sitting in that moon-bathed room, away from the window, and suffered alongside him on opposite ends.

One silent, and one loud.

Sometimes, when he knew Frankenstein was hurting and they — Dark Spear — lapped at his mind, he watched him. He watched his dreams, enshrouded by everything Frankenstein never wanted to concern him with, and hoped his sharing his pain would relieve him.

He could relieve his pain, but not his anguish.

When his nightmares came calling and Frankenstein paid his debts, Raizel saw his worst fears and lost hopes — what made him go running, running:

He wasn't running from humankind—he was running _for_ them, even when they hated him.

 _Why does mankind hate Frankenstein?_ He always thought, but then, isn't it the same thing?

 _Why does noble-kind fear him?_

Sometimes, it was the same dream, other times, it was different, but as the nights drew longer and the days carried on, Raizel realised: the same ghosts demanded his penance.

Raizel stood by the door when a woman laid in bed, a strange bird's mask, black, with an elongated beak, sat on a table next to her; and there was a pail of water coloured bloody. Her neck exposed flecks of a disease which transitioned into a gruesome discolouring—crawling slowly upwards, as if to stain her face. And this was where Frankenstein would always come in, crouching at her bedside and putting his forehead up to hers. He would take her palm and squeeze.

 _"_ _Sir! You shan't go near her — its…scarlet fever cannot be—"_

And Raizel would step back, out of the way where the shouting man would stumble backwards; this was where Frankenstein would lurch to face them and:

 _"_ _Scarlet fever?"_ he sneered, still holding onto the woman's hand. _"You…half…witted—imbeciles! You still think this is 'scarlet fever'?"_ His tone would oscillate, mocking, and frightful. _"She craves blood for God's sake!"_

Then he'd turn back to the woman — and Raizel knew this part well — she'll start to crumble, her face would start to crumble and break apart, a hideous phantasm; she'll look to him as the whites of her eyes melted out of their sockets, over her crumbling skin, _"help me."_ But Frankenstein wouldn't pull away, only stare, dumbstruck as her hand decayed in his hand and — and this was where he'd start screaming. Back in his sheetless bed, in his double-locked room, in the distant wing in his faraway mansion.

He'd scream.

Sometimes, he'd be standing in a vast clearing and Frankenstein was there, blood soaked into his white sleeves, dirt smudged on his tired face, a shovel in his blistered hands and a broken cross at his feet. And when Raizel stepped forward to see what he was admiring, he'd blanch, even though he knew this part, knew what he would see. He was at Frankenstein's side and they were overlooking a gargantuan ditch. Skins punctured and maggot-infested, the dead sported hideous injuries and disease in the midst of decomposing. Blood still trickled from them, attracting a horde of flies and insects that wafted above in circles. The stench extended onto the ledge, and Frankenstein hacked as nonchalantly as he could.

Then he'd follow Frankenstein down, down into the grave of hundreds, and wait for him to stare at one dead man, placed in a sitting position, some way away from the others. He'd touch his hand to the man's limp neck and he'd just stay there, staring. Raizel waited for him, and when he was done, a long time had passed. Frankenstein would finally cross the dead man's arms over his body, laying him to rest. _"I'm sorry,"_ he would say, _"sorry."_ And Frankenstein would find his throat felt hoarse when he woke.

But always, always — every time Raizel stood by to watch he would wonder: _where will I see the boy this time?_ The one with the necklace, sometimes in a lab coat. Amid all of the horrors, the death and decay, Frankenstein always dreamed of a young, sunlit boy, who trailed behind him relentlessly and said things — silly, little-boyish things — to make him smile. And sometimes, the boy ran past Raizel, brushing past his legs to catch up with Frankenstein.

"Professor! Look! Look here! I got it — I got the equation, Professor Frankenstein!"

"Lemme see."

He watched Frankenstein, dressed in that long white coat, bob his head in dramatic approval and then sit right down on the floor — marking the work as the boy watched impatiently over his shoulder. "This is _fantastic,_ Tesamu," he would start, "this is _fantabulous,_ this is _excellent,_ it's _outstanding, remarkable…"_

Raizel felt awful for smiling.

He looked to the boy, and he knew his face well, by now.

 _Why must Frankenstein watch you die again?_

Sometimes, this was where Raizel would look away — because this was one of his most private illusions — but most times, he wanted to stay with him. Because this was where he'd struggle to breathe, self-chained to his bed, and his pain here was the worst. Raizel watched Frankenstein destroy his home, demolish the vast information he'd culminated over a lifetime, and he'd dream of that boy. One time, he was there with him and the boy was being led up to something he thought was a stage, with a wooden beam. But when the boy looked at Frankenstein, Raizel knew this was a nightmare. This was one of those dreams where Frankenstein couldn't move, couldn't speak, and he knew what that meant. Frankenstein watched as the boy was lifted onto a stand on the stage, and men on either side looped a rope around his little, pale neck.

Then voices sounded in frenzy — Raizel couldn't make sense of them, couldn't read minds because they weren't real people — but some words he understood in Frankenstein's language. And it was so easy for him to understand why Frankenstein trusted no one.

 _Traitor-boy._

 _Devil-fraternizer._

 _The mad-man's spy._

And as the rope went taut and the boy's legs stopped twitching, Raizel watched as Frankenstein watched — voiceless and motionless, rooted in his sins and then those that weren't even his.

Frankenstein dreamed and Raizel watched over him, easing his pain, but not his anguish.

In the dark of the night, sometimes, many times — but this, was the first time, Raizel saw something familiar manifest in his dreams. For the very first time, he stood outside his own mansion. Raizel wavered, searching around for Frankenstein, but he wasn't here. Where was he? He let himself in, twisting the doorknob Frankenstein had polished to shine, passing the vases of flowers Frankenstein had placed, and marvelling at a chandelier he didn't even know Frankenstein had strung up.

Would he find the boy here? Tesamu?

He dreamed, dreamed often, and Raizel could walk here because his dreams were so vivid. It was almost real — the woollen carpets, the marble stone; Raizel could almost forget he was in a dream. Suddenly, Frankenstein's huffing breaths reached him from behind and he whipped around, evading the running man as he sped up the stairs, down the hall, through the corridor…into his room.

He followed.

And when he got there, for the first time, Raizel saw himself. His back was turned to them both, his white clothes almost glowing, and his red eyes somehow…. _ethereal_ — reflecting like gems in the closed window.

Cadis Etrama di Raizel inhaled — even though this was a dream, one that was not even his own, and he didn't need to breathe. But he did it, acutely.

He didn't understand.

What was going on?

 _Why…am_ _I_ _in Frankenstein's dream?_

It was so peculiar — looking at his own back, the way Frankenstein saw it. Looking at this room, through his sapphire eyes. Then, Raizel had an overwhelming urge for the other him to turn towards the blonde man. Speak to him.

Though he seldom did.

Frankenstein was huffing, and to Raizel's surprise, he saw his entire body relax.

"You're alright," he panted to the other him.

 _No._

All of sudden, Raizel, the real Raizel, understood.

 _Don't._

Frankenstein collected himself, and then straightened up, taking a tentative step forward. Raizel hated it — how careful he was being with the other him.

"Sir…Sir I need to tell you something."

 _'_ _Yes? Frankenstein?'_ Raizel answered immediately, but the other him did not.

Frankenstein stood stiffly, bothered by the other man's silence. He swallowed. "I've made a mistake." Raizel watched him, a feeling he realised was terror reaching up.

 _'_ _Tell me.'_ But Frankenstein didn't answer to him.

"Look, Sir, people are coming for me…I thought…I thought they'd taken you but I…" Sometimes, in his dreams, Frankenstein let himself crack. " _Guh_ …I led them here…oh my god I led them… _pp_ lease, you have to leave. We have to get out of here, Sir!"

 _Turn around,_ Raizel willed. _Turn around. Turn to him. Face him._

But the other him didn't move.

"Can't you do this one thing for me? Please, we need to go—they're coming for me and I led them straight to you, don't you see? It's not _safe_ here and it won't _ever_ be again."

Frankenstein drew in a breath. "Raizel-nim, come with me."

Raizel watched, the words striking him like daylight had dawned. But he was feeling sick, sicker than usual when he watched over him — ashamed by the other Noblesse standing at that useless window when _— listen to him!_

"Come with me, Raizel-nim, they're right behind us…Won't you answer me properly?"

Silence, that he knew all too well.

"Don't do this, not right now!" Frankenstein looked surprised at his own voice. But the moment passed, and he hardened. "HELL — listen! — Raizel-nim!" Frankenstein strode over and deftly gripped his arm. He shook him slightly.

"Can't you at least _pretend_ to care? You need to leave here—I-I, I-"

Raizel saw his grip on him tighten.

"—I need to protect you."

Cadis Etrama di Raizel froze, petrified behind the two men. _Frankenstein…_

All his dreams, every, single, one of them: the horrors they held, the sick humans, the colossal graves, the little boy — his eyes shuttered with a stark realisation. The thing that Frankenstein feared most in his life, that Dark Spear used to hurt him…was not being able to save people.

 _Someone…like me?_

Then, _and then_ , Raizel heard his own voice.

"Just go."

Frankenstein's hand trailed down the other Noblesse's sleeve, silky material slipping out of his fingers as he dropped him. "What?"

"Go."

Raizel stared.

Suddenly, without so much as hearing the three dozen footsteps ring loud in his mansion, or a bustle of intruders searching for their location, the room became enclosed with the enemies of Frankenstein — flaunting their weapons and spouting their hatred. Frankenstein spasmed, amok, whipping around to shield the other Raizel without recovering from his speechlessness.

"Leave. Go," the other him repeated. His reflection didn't waver in the cold visage of the window. His face was carved of stone. His voice was blunted sword.

Frankenstein furrowed his brows, his crystal eyes now thinning into predatory slits; and Raizel could almost believe that the hollow response he coaxed from the other Noblesse, hardly even fazed him. He sneered, pair of slits flitting around the room, eyeing each intruder with an unadulterated, cutting malice. "You — all of you — I'm right _satan-damned here_. Come and get me."

Raizel spun to look at the enemies. The bloody eyes of mutants stared back, as well as humans, nobles…even werewolves. Who were they? Beings whom Frankenstein had fought before? Beings whom he had to bring to justice?

Beings who helped fill those graves Frankenstein was digging.

Because in his dreams, there was always digging.

It was a human who stood out, tall, emotionless, and dressed completely in white. He motioned to Frankenstein.

And then, his room tore apart. Frankenstein was fighting — all of them, and all at once: swerving left, and right. And when anything came even remotely close to the other Noblesse, he snatched at the hits meant for him: knocking away his own breath. Frankenstein's ribs ruptured in the other Raizel's place; a flesh-shield. Through the violence, the mindless destruction, Frankenstein lifted an arm. He looked pleadingly to the heavens.

" _Answer…my call_."

But this was a dream. Dark Spear would not come. Dark Spear did not care. He was powerless. The realisation pierced him like an arrow set to its mark.

They swamped him. They beat him.

And now, Raizel wanted to scream.

 _"_ _No,"_ Frankenstein whispered. "Don't. Touch him."

Raizel saw himself, beat down and pummelled, spilling his blood on Frankenstein's newly cleaned rug. The other Raizel wavered between consciousness, stealing glances of Frankenstein. His eyes were cloudy. Sad.

"Don't touch him!" Frankenstein called out, exasperated. "Don't you dare touch him!"

 _Smack, smack, thock._

 _"_ _Don't touch him God don't- Stop it!"_ He wrangled himself from the boot on his back. _"It's me you want! It's always me! Beat me! Raizel-nim—"_

They silenced him again, put a fist to his face, then pulled him up by his long, blonde hair. A noble spoke. "Now watch him die, and thank us. That's more than what you got with _the boy._ "

Frankenstein didn't call out. He didn't scream. He didn't yell. He only relaxed his brow, parting his split lips.

A tear slipped out of his blue, blue eye.

 **No.**

Suddenly, he'd watched enough. Suddenly, he'd waited enough, and Cadis Etrama di Raizel was done letting him get hurt: even when it was not real, none of this was real, and none of it even mattered. Frankenstein never cried him his dreams. Not before the dying woman, the filled graves, or the mangled, trodden body of the boy.

No one makes Frankenstein cry. Not even himself.

Power circled the room in a gushing vortex—the air of it infused of red, the vitality of it seething rife. He broke in, no longer an onlooker, enclosing Frankenstein's mind. Was he allowed to? He didn't know, but he would answer to him later. With one, small nod forward, Raizel made himself visible.

Frankenstein wavered, astonished by the two Raizels': one emanating power, prestige; the other lying defeated, destroyed.

Raizel rose up in the room, dispersing the phantoms of Dark Spear — and as they spasmed away, they writhed back into dark, dark projections before the sheer force of his crimson aura disintegrated their forms. A flurry of whispers welled out from the walls and Dark Spear revealed themselves, chattering gleefully in their game. **_Ffrankenstteinn…when will you…save us?_** The room became empty again, with just Frankenstein and the two Raizels'.

The true Raizel spoke, looking down at his battered image. He stood there awkwardly, all the prestige of his power wiped away — like he'd burst in uninvited into someone else's private conversation.

"… _That_ is not me."

Frankenstein didn't move.

"…You should know that it is not me. I will never… _never_ , turn my back on you in your time of need."

Frankenstein looked dazed, unsure what to do.

"You are under my wing and thus, under my protection. Frankenstein…" he said, intently, "I care… _immensely_." Raizel lifted an arm, forcefully chasing away the other him on the floor, and all of Dark Spear was banished. He was back to that shy, reserved demeanour. Except he was fiddling aimlessly on the spot — as if he was all of a sudden, totally conscious about the way he stood, but there were far too many specifics to consider.

"I…I've entered your mind with the authority bestowed upon me…but not your permission. I hope you can forgive me."

 _"_ _I don't understand,"_ Frankenstein murmured.

"This…um…hm…do you — wish to remember this?" Raizel muttered timidly.

"You…you're really in my dream?" Frankenstein muttered back, a strange awareness dawning on him. He stumbled quickly to his feet, deeply agitated by his appearance on the floor.

"I can make it so you can forget this all. This dream, in particular," Raizel continued, "…With your consent, I will wake you, and you won't remember."

"…How did you. Fight them all so easily?"

"They…weren't real."

"Then how do I know this is real?"

Raizel frowned to himself, questioningly, and regarded his words. "Hmm…I made Dark Spear reveal themselves."

"Dark Spear can choose to reveal themselves whenever they want."

Raizel looked greatly stumped. This time, Frankenstein took a small step forward, and Raizel relinquished everything in a heartbeat — giving him control of his own dream.

"Do _you_ want me to forget this?"

Raizel stepped back. "…"

"Answer me."

"…"

"Answer me!"

"Yes."

Raizel looked up to the taller man. He was surprised when he saw no anger in those toiling, blue pools. They were still rippling with the terror of before — though Frankenstein tried not to show it. Raizel tried not to see it.

"Then I want to remember," Frankenstein said.

"…I, oblige."

The visage of the room withered away and Frankenstein braced himself, waiting to fall — but Raizel wouldn't let him.

 **"** **Frankenstein**

 **"** **Wake up."**

 _"_ _Haah!"_

* * *

The first time he saw himself in Frankenstein's nightmares, was the first time he'd broken his own boundaries. He entered his mind, waking him up. And then with the other sometimes, upon the arrangements they'd agreed upon, Raizel would reach for him, pulling him away from Dark Spear. And a few years later, after they became contracted, souls in an eternal embrace, Raizel saw himself more and more in his dreams. So he protected him, always.

Sometimes, the mansion — inhabited by two people, one soul — became peaceful.

* * *

Crimson eyes opened in the darkened room. Breath wafted out in a little sigh as he shook his head to one side. Frankenstein was finally coming home.

* * *

Notes.

Thank you for all your kind ass comments and time, I am so flattered! Seriously I love writing this fic and I love hearing your thoughts and I love Franken and Rai. It's just flashback this week since this one was so long, more present day shenanigans next time. (Apologies for the next chapter in advance. And the rest of this fic tbh.)

Cold April- Thank you thank you thank you, I'm so glad you're enjoying this :D Yep- all the flashback! There's a huge part of Franken's life missing (that we never find out about in the manhwa, not yet anyway) so this is my bedazzlement of that.

XxDark BeautyxX- You know, I did not plan for the RK-0 and Zero Elder connection? It just. Happened. And fits? Hahahah thanks for letting me know though it makes it even better! Franken goes back to face Rai in the next chapter. Hold on until then? Thank.

c6 Guest- Thanks! The relationship between Franken and Rai is a very special one. It's really the thing that got me so invested in Noblesse.

c6 Guest 2- Franken seems super bothered by Faust doesn't he? Keep in mind Dark Spear just loves to annoy him too. Yep, thanks!

Laryna6- Glad everybody hates Faust XD It's a great reaction yay! I mean, we've seen what Franken's like when ppl try to insult Rai in a kind of ignorant 'I have no idea you can squish me like a bug' way, but this? Next level shit-talking Rai ._.Keep writing fic for me!

Argonautica- aaaand everybody joins the 'I hate Faust' bandwagon. Nice. As always, thank you for your extensive reviews, I read them like I read a fav chapter of a fanfic ah. Thanks for sharing emoTIONS.

Kaikouken- Thank you so much for reviewing and chatting and writing me good fic guys Kaikouken also writes noblesse- check out AO3's 'Nerdanel.' V good fic. 10/10 recommend. And I loved your fic commentary on Franken vs God- I couldn't have said it better myself- you actually put it in words!

* * *

See you next time~

-earl


	8. Backlash

**Disclaimer:** Noblesse belongs to Jeho Son, Kwangsu Lee and line webtoons. I have no affiliation with Noblesse.

 **Credits:** SO I have betas again! This chapter is proudly brought to you by Kaikouken (Nerdanel on AO3) and Argonautica. Many many thanks to you.

* * *

 _Frankenstein, are you alright?_

'Yes, of course. I'm on my way home, is there anything I may bring back for you?'

 _I heard glass shattering._

* * *

 **Backlash**

The littlest choices — the ones you don't think matter all that much — turn out to be the gravest mistakes. He thought of the leader of the Jacobin faction during the upheaval of the French Revolution, 1794, and how all the middlemen, radicals and sworn revolutionaries revolved around the fingertips of one man. A Molotov cocktail of self-righteous, power-hungry idealism to lead France into a new age. Maximilien Robespierre made the guillotine-chop sound like the constant _click_ of clockwork striking, but his downfall came with a silly little mistake. He came into his last assembly with another list of executions to go around, but this time, he didn't make it privy to the rest of the people. Everybody panicked: what if their name was on the list? The very next day, Robespierre was arrested and his neck became acquainted with the guillotine the way his name was.

Frankenstein once made a mistake too. He'd promised to protect the peasants from plagued creatures running just outside their city walls. They were mutants. He was strong. And the people supported him, hid him from the ones who wanted to gut him with holy-water-drenched-sickles and insisted he was the antichrist. He told them he could protect them all, and he could. But he didn't say how. The second purple sparked from his fingertips, they practically begged his enemies to take him. They wanted to hand him over, toss him over the city walls if they could.

 _"_ _We don't want your help. You're not to be trusted!"_

He made a mistake tonight, too. He got a little bit angry, a little bit crazy; he held Dark Spear's hands in his own and shattered his seal into a thousand tiny pieces. All it took was a hop, a skip, and a glare of gold light; a trace of amber eyes, red stitches. His footsteps dragged across the concrete, all those tiny, whiny regrets dangling behind him in ruins. Weighing him down. He could hardly swallow his defeat. Strategies, counterattacks and retorts all swarmed in his mind, replaying the one-sided fight in glitchy moments before something else flew awry and demanded his suspicion.

 _He didn't try to attack me at all. Did he?_

Confusion clouded Frankenstein's mind as he scrambled for an answer. A close-knit, abrasive kind of feeling, and his insides burned.

 ** _Maybe it's because he's right._**

Frankenstein stopped in his tracks.

"I don't need this again."

 ** _Maybe it's because he knows that you know._**

"…Know what?"

 ** _You restrain your powers. You are nothing more than a slave._**

Frankenstein sighed, loud and mocking.

 ** _What more could he have done to you? You're a-_**

"Leave me alone."

Frankenstein picked up his pace.

"Leave me…" They were gone. "…alone…"

In an instant, he let go as the stress became too much to bear. The aftermath of using Dark Spear without satiating them came as a dizzying ache. A hand whipped up as the first throb beat through, a vivid and pounding staccato in his head. Frankenstein winced. Nausea funnelled up in an uptempo percussion. He heard nothing, only felt it.

 _"_ _Guh…"_

When he expected Dark Spear's taunts, they were silent.

 _You are nothing more than a slave._

Faust's words echoed in his mind, and Frankenstein resorted to summoning what little power he had to ease the waves of pain. _No._ All at once, he shoved it down again. Every last sliver confined back into the grooves. He mustn't use his power, any of it. Hadn't he disobeyed enough orders? Now, no different from an ordinary human, he continued the trek home.

 _Professor Frankenstein._

Frankenstein arched his neck to see the sky. This man was old, this man was human — the Zeroth Elder of the Union. Slowly, the pieces began to fall into place, making no sense at all. But everything obvious leapt out like bright aura in a dark night. Faust made a deliberate attempt to run around in his image not just because he knew of him from the Union, didn't come by his school for an ordered attack. He _knew_ him. From back then.

Great.

Well, that didn't lower the probability of anything. How many enemies did he make in his heyday? How many enemies would like his head on a pike? How many would be devoted enough to live through ages for their revenge? _A hell-fucking lot,_ Frankenstein concluded. He had to leave the school. M-21, Takeo, Tao and the noble children didn't stand a chance against Faust. _Zeroth Elder._ Just how much power did he have in the Union? Frankenstein needed to leave — figure out his next steps and hunt him down. He didn't care who the hell Faust was. Nobody disparaged his Master.

 _You are nothing more than a slave._

He remembered Faust's eyes. He walked on, trying to shut out the ringing voice. Trying to forget it because it wasn't an insult.

Faust's voice had been full of pity.

* * *

He stopped before his house, not even realising he'd reached his destination until he was right outside the door. Frankenstein moved to unlock it, but then twitched. His arm hung idly in mid-air before he pulled it back to his side. Suddenly, he became painfully aware of his heightened heartbeat and of the cold sweat wetting his hands. What was he going to say to his Master? Frankenstein felt like some naughty school kid, helpless and about to face the principal's office. He remembered the faces of all those children who spent forever lingering outside his door — now he was on the other side of it. Frankenstein bit into his cheek and swallowed. More time passed.

 _How the Great have fallen._

Frankenstein cracked open the connection. Raizel was indeed home, but not in his usual seat in the living room. Strange. In fact, it seemed as if he was coming closer — to the door. Frankenstein took a loud step back. As the door lock whirred and clicked, crimson eyes fell on his dishevelled form and he blanched.

"Mas…ter."

"You are very late," Raizel said shortly.

"…I know."

Raizel dropped his stare and took a long, gentle sigh. "…I was beginning to wonder if you preferred to spend the night standing outside." His voice was soft yet flat.

Frankenstein's lips quirked up for a second. He clenched his eyes shut for a moment too long. "I was just —" _What? Playing around with Dark Spear? Demolishing a new building complex?_

 _Fighting a losing battle?_

Raizel spoke again, but there was melancholy in his tone. "I do not recall revoking your right to enter."

With that, Raizel stepped to the side, and to Frankenstein's alarm, held the door open for him. Frankenstein seemed to freeze up in the doorway. If was as if something had taken hold of his spine, tugging another chill down upon it. This was immensely uncomfortable. Embarrassment jabbed him from behind, beckoning him in. A long time seemed to pass in mere seconds, and he snapped out of his trance in time to feel another stab of guilt. He was keeping Raizel waiting.

Frankenstein lowered his head and stepped inside.

* * *

Raizel slid into his seat and sat in silence. Frankenstein moved to his right side and stood. For the first time in a long while, the silence felt wrong around them.

"Master…I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. I humbly apologise."

Raizel remained silent. Frankenstein shut his eyes, mind searching for the right words. He pursed his lips.

"You lied to me."

Frankenstein started.

Raizel didn't turn to him. "A frame did not fall in your office. You were _on your way home_ hours ago. And…"

Frankenstein relaxed, like one did when they were resigned to their fate.

"…you are not alright."

He jolted again, words scrambling to escape before he could think. "Master…I am sorry…I am…"

"I know."

"You, _you know?"_

An incredulous look. A small silence. Raizel turned to look him squarely in the eye. "You were very distressed. Under pressure, you opened our connection. You didn't laugh, this time. You shouted. I know, Frankenstein, I felt your anger." He paused a little. Frankenstein's sight flitted between Raizel and the floor.

"It felt like touching fire…drinking flames." His expression saddened. "He said some things, and did some things, that I couldn't see or hear — but it hurt you."

Raizel watched Frankenstein stare at the floor. An ant hobbled across the cracks, disappearing under the table. Frankenstein followed its movement, hands not even daring to clench or shift or twitch. He just stood there.

"You lost control."

"Yes, Master."

"Would you have let Dark Spear consume you, should it satisfy your urge to fight?"

"I…"

Frankenstein winced. He still didn't dare look up. Beyond his shame, somewhere in the distance where it was always constant, the black streaks of Dark Spear writhed around the corners, slithering closer like the tide coming in at the wrong time — symptoms of a lethal tidal wave. All of a sudden, the ghoulish mass lurched closer, calling, calling…

 ** _Fffrankenstein…don't be shy…don't try to be modest now — look where that got us the last time? In the servitude of the ones we once sought to destroyyy…_**

From the blackness, a mass of grappling hands loomed forth, searching and feeling the ends of his mind. They touched and caressed; Frankenstein felt hot hands clasp his face, closing around his arms and legs and torso, and he was being dragged behind him into the nothingness.

 ** _Come now…tell the truth…the dear Master deserves the truth! You would let us eat you up to fulfil that thrill you can't give uppp. We curse you, Frankenstein…we curse you..._**

 ** _...and you let us._**

A soft, sickly hand wormed its way off his mouth, ungagging him.

 ** _Go on, go on, Professor! — tell him how you'd love to tear him limb from limb, flesh from bone and applaud as he drowned in his own blood. Professor?_**

 ** _Professor Frankenstein…_**

They frenzied. The black storm hissed in contempt, crumbling inwards on itself as a red mist veiled his mind's eye. Frankenstein whipped around, hands balled into damp fists—ready to attack the intruder.

 _Intruder?_

His eyes widened. Raizel's white form stood in the centre, an arm raised against the disease: forcing it to collapse back into the distance. Tendrils stretched and snapped, separating from Frankenstein with a sticky reluctance. He became aware of a ringlet tugging on his wrist, and as he watched the colour come back to his hands, he didn't fight or try to bat them off. He just accepted it. Their abyss-like coils flailed and receded.

 ** _Fran…ken…sstein….Pro…fess...sor…_**

Raizel turned to his stunned servant. "Frankenstein. Focus."

And Frankenstein was staring into the sight of crimson red, back in that lightly furnished, South Korean house. His master hadn't moved an inch, but his expression was solemn.

"Frankenstein?" All the command instantly seeped out of Raizel's voice.

He found himself huffing, and when he looked down, his feet were planted firmly on the ground. _"Haah, haah…haah…_ Ma… _haah_ — Master…" He breathed. "I—" Frankenstein dropped to one knee, bending his body rigidly over. "I'm so sorry! You didn't need to see that. You shouldn't have had to see that. I apologise profusely…I didn't let Dark Spear fight and they're growing restless. I apologise, but that was no excuse for my behaviour, Master."

"You're dangerous, Frankenstein."

His blood ran cold in his veins. Frankenstein looked up. "Master?"

"You lost control of your anger before. You almost lost control of Dark Spear right now." Raizel paused, mulling the words over in his mouth. But nothing could blunt them. "It is dangerous for you to be like this. In your possessed state, you laid great waste to Lukedonia. How much damage could you do if you rampaged here?"

Something within him faltered. Frankenstein felt himself move and place both knees onto the floor. Slowly, he lowered his head to the ground. Long hair swept the dust. "Yes, Master. Forgive me. I have shamed you."

 _The Great have fallen._

"I await your orders."

"Go to your lab. Rest there. I will give you a dreamless sleep. This matter can be investigated at a later time — for now, you need to rest." Raizel sighed sadly, staring at the top of Frankenstein's head. "Rise, Frankenstein."

"Yes, Master."

He did as he was ordered without so much as another word, and lay on a test slab—waiting to be forcefully put to sleep.

But a piteous voice rang in his head, burrowed down where Dark Spear dwelled, made a friend with them beneath his mind; and when he closed his eyes, a taunt was all that he could hear.

 _Who are you so angry at?_

It was Faust's voice that chanted, not Dark Spear's.

* * *

Raizel sat quietly on the plush couch, the foul aftertaste of their evening still hard to swallow. What did that man do to Frankenstein? And he remained there; no amount of sugar would be able to sweeten his tea tonight.

 _Why was Frankenstein's aura…hostile towards me?_

* * *

Notes

Alright, now to answer some q on the last chapter.

So, the white figure (human) in Franken's dream was the embodiment of the Union. Cos, you know, Union uniform is white, right? This is an early stage of Franken and Rai's association. Maybe about 6-7 years in? Yes, by then I'm sure Franken would have worked out that Rai is awkward dolphin who can't ignore ppl no matter what, but that's the point. In Dark Spear-induced dreams, Franken's fears are amplified a gazillion times. He fears to see his loved ones hurt and die because of him. He fears to have Rai treat him how you would think a stereotypical 'noble' might treat a human (at that stage in his thinking.) He fears that Raizel doesn't really think anything of him, that he's nothing to him. Because Rai was his 'safe place' in reality, he is the opposite in his dreams - these are all Franken's existing insecurities tuned to the max. And in his dreams, he believes it because it feels _so_ real. (Franken can't have that kind of dream now because lol, Rai ignoring him has to be remotely possible.)

Anyway, that was the first time Franken dreamed about Raizel. Despite his coldness in the dream, he's still willing to save him because he knows the caring version of him in real life. Might add a bit more to this when I think it up? Um, ask q?

Thank you all so much.


	9. The Encounter

This chapter is proudly brought to you by betas Kaikouken (Nerdanel on AO3) and Argonautica. Many, many thanks to you!

* * *

Fealty

He was used to bowed heads. They gave him fealty: a given, unconditional respect. The same as their fear, the same as their obligation, and he wanted none of that. He understood bowing to him was something ugly and besmirching, and he forced his enemies to bow to him. _"Kneel."_ He was an ultimatum.

Though the room remained as silent as ever, his mind was in uproar. Frankenstein had lowered himself onto his knees — this prideful, dignified…they called him an arrogant man — he kneeled before him, averting his eyes only to bend his head. The obligations of nobles didn't bind him, no force in the world could make him do a single thing, and yet he chose —

He chose to bow to him. Frankenstein wasn't bound by fealty — he gave him loyalty. Frankenstein bowed not just to the Noblesse, the being of majesty or power or sovereignty — he bowed to Raizel. Cadis Etrama di Raizel, the one who drank tea he remembered after it'd grown cold, the one who flushed red at every nice compliment and took days to choose the right words to say. Clueless, silly, too old-fashioned Raizel couldn't wrap his head around how he'd managed to seduce the most swashbuckling man in the world, by standing in the same spot a lot. Frankenstein kneeled to him like it was something golden, precious like wishes and purer than anything; like bowing to him was something beautiful. There was not the slightest drop of dignity lost—he was hardly worthy, he deserved more.

But _oh_ , Frankenstein, _you are the most worthy being in all of creation, I am the luckiest noble to have your everything._

Frankenstein had brought his head to the floor this time as an apology. He'd broken his seal, he'd disobeyed his orders. But in that moment, Raizel felt like every time he forced a criminal onto their knees — he felt like he was taking away something important from them. Like stripping them of pride or honour.

He felt foul when Frankenstein had bowed to him.

* * *

 **The Encounter**

Raizel was still seated. Now, within the deepest enclaves of the night, nothing stirred in the house and the smallest of noises rang through the rooms. So he kept still. His eyes flickered down. There was his tea sat on the table—forgotten and long cold. His eyes flickered up. Suddenly, he was intimately aware that the moon had passed on, and he stood. It also happened that Raizel had no idea how to open the light. He had never needed to actually _flip_ the light switch before — when he entered the room it was always lit up waiting, like routine. The book he'd been reading sat opened on the last page, pressed flat on the table. The only source of light floated from the glass sliding doors, casting a long shadow over the floor. Raizel went to it and slid it open. From the veranda, he could see the yellow light came from a street lamp, wavering as moths circled around it.

Frankenstein.

Dark Spear had always been rage-filled, but lately, the way it had sparked up at Frankenstein was unheard of. When was the last time he'd let them consume him? When Frankenstein sentenced Zarga Siriana and Urokai Agvain. That was a long time ago. It hadn't acted up so violently since. Until now. What was the change? What made them so angry?

 _Frankenstein._ Raizel waved away the image of his head on the floor.

Raizel creased his brow. _Why was Frankenstein so affected by Dark Spear's anger right now?_

Outside, silence pervaded, but inside his mind his thoughts were surging. Raizel gathered his power within him: moulding it, moving it, and pushing it towards Frankenstein, putting up a barrier around him. They were angry, but he would make sure that Dark Spear won't touch him. So he stayed up tonight, watching moths fly and holding his concentration.

Suddenly, red gleamed over the dark, and his eyes widened. Raizel closed them, and sighed. Things might get complicated.

Closing the glass doors behind him, he ambled around in the shadows, past his seat — into the kitchen. He, of course, didn't know this place well, and Frankenstein made sure of that. But Frankenstein wasn't about to let Raizel go tealess when he was out and about, so Raizel found the electric kettle easily enough, and put it on. He just stood before the contraption for the three minute wait, and then it _dinged_ coming to a boil. Next came some awkward fumbling as he rummaged for some fresh cups and when he found them — finally a pair that matched — he placed them on a porcelain tray. Tea was easy — loose leaves in a can on the middle shelf. He couldn't find a strainer. After a particularly daunting search for sugar, he came across the brown cubes he'd seen Frankenstein add to his tea before.

 _Cubes._ Humans were endlessly thoughtful.

Raizel made the last preparations and sat down again in the dark, waiting.

In this silence, sound resonated beneath his skin and the four knocks on the door came stark and deft: one slow rap, and three shorter raps.

 _Tock—toc, toc, toc._

Knocks on the door, when there was a doorbell. There was no need for Raizel to answer.

The electric lock began to blink _,_ blink, in a pattern he didn't recognise, and the lock whirred open with a final _click_ of a latch. Then a man let himself in, shoes tapping on the floor as he approached Raizel's back.

"…Why the heck is it so _dark_ in here?"

The man quickly strode to the far wall, not hesitating in the slightest. He easily flipped a switch. The lights immediately blinked on.

"That's much better isn't it. Much cosier."

He sauntered back to the seats, stopping behind Raizel.

"Salutem, honorari Sir." Raizel's brows lifted slightly. The man repeated in Korean, "Greetings, Honourable Sir."

Unfazed this time, Raizel rose from the seat with all the dignity of a nobleman, and answered, "Et tibi. Bonum nocte hac, nonne." _And to you. Good night tonight, is it not?_

The man looked taken aback, but then settled with pleasant surprise. "Ah—I— _of course_ you would know his language."

"I have known vulgar Latin for a long time." As long as he'd known Frankenstein. He was fluent in his language. And he'd made an effort to learn its modern counterparts—German, especially. The man lifted a hand, and Raizel lingered a long moment. He took it. Their handshake was stoic.

"Faust," the guest introduced lightheartedly.

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel," the Noblesse replied.

Raizel motioned to the seats. "Perplaceo, sit."

The strange guest nodded politely and sat. Raizel regarded the guest for a moment. He was adorned with a form-fitting white coat hemmed with bronze. Since the first glance—'Union member' welled out from him. Raizel didn't question his face—masked over with a black cloth that was stitched up in the centre with a looming, red thread. Raizel walked to the kitchen counter, took the tray of tea, and placed it down gingerly between them. He took a seat as well. With careful hands, he steadied the lid of the teapot as he poured.

"You are charming." Faust clapped his hands soundlessly under his chin. "You really are. Perhaps he really could be charmed by a noble like you." Raizel didn't answer.

Faust quickly took his tea as he offered it. "Thank you very much." He took a whiff of the aroma, eyes closed. When he opened them above the cup, Raizel was searching, blatantly.

White uniform.

Blonde hair.

Amber eyes.

"Earl grey?" came his jovial voice. "Not very Korean, I must say. But I digress. Elegant, all the same." He clinked it down gently, cup still full. Under his stare, Faust tilted his head innocently. "It's hot."

"Perhaps." Raizel drank his calmly.

When Frankenstein shut off every last shred of power, he forfeited his sixth sense and blinded himself from the enemy when he turned his back. He'd walked the enemy straight home. Right now, that didn't matter, because Raizel was home. He watched over Frankenstein and guarded the house. Frankenstein shouldn't know of this. It was better, this way.

Frankenstein must _never know_ he'd served tea to their attacker.

After Raizel finished his cup, it was Faust that hurried to refill it. "Sugar? I've heard you have a particular taste."

"No thank you."

"Oh please, there's no need to refrain because of me, Raizel-nim." Faust scooped two cubes into the tea. "Let's not be strangers more than we already are." He lifted his cup slightly, mixing the spoon with a few methodical swirls.

Raizel remained unaffected. He watched Faust: his movements were steady, fluid, like one of a well-trained man — meaning one of a well-suppressed man who knew how not only to mask his identity, but his powers as well. Under that coat was an able body, enough to go toe-to-toe with one of the most skilled fighters he knew. Frankenstein. _He knew._ He could feel Dark Spear's remnants pick under Faust's aura, a bright one, a gold one, and he knew he had trouble shaking it off.

But he was still here, in the home of his enemy, wasn't he?

Calm, collected, and daringly self-assured.

Like a certain someone.

Raizel's expression _darkened._

 _Too_ much like a certain someone.

 _Faust…_

He mulled over the name his mind, and drew a blank. He hesitated now. It was one of those thoughts where it was strange—the more and more one thought of it, the more and more familiar it would start to sound. But then he couldn't be sure if nothing came to him the first time. Was he overthinking things? Overthinking things because this man…this man had bested _Frankenstein_ in a battle of wits.

Raizel accepted the tea, nodding gently.

Why did this man feel so much like Frankenstein? Close to the first time they'd ever met.

Faust felt like him, from back then.

* * *

There was a conviction, a drive and vehement intention that landed Frankenstein there: almost-serpentine ambition that swallowed worlds and the sky in his eyes. He felt a hunger radiate unchecked, a dangerous gluttony: for power, for wisdom, but then justice and everything that was right for the world that wasn't right, right now. He had a desire for revenge — or was it _them, Dark Spear_ , or both — it was a deep thirst for blood-loss and bloodlust. He yearned for many things and almost-things and humanity; and he accumulated wishes, lost-count of his burns, and Raizel knew — no one else knew a fire like he did.

Faust was Frankenstein in his younger days, his crazier days and unhappier days. Perhaps that was why he felt so familiar. But Faust just smiled up at him, pouring his tea in a way that Frankenstein never would. Contemptuously.

He tore back to reality. Even back then, the first time they'd met and then on after, Frankenstein never once bared his fangs to him like this.

"You seem to know me."

"I think I do," Faust replied.

"But I do not know you."

"Why would a noble ever concern themselves with a _lowly man_ like me?" His words were spoken like grit.

Raizel narrowed his eyes and regarded him silently. When he didn't show even a spark of anger, Faust hunched over, chuckling through his mask. _"Nah-haha!_ Forgive my…forwardness." He snapped back up, this time baring his neck. Faust flaunted it like he knew all those human ghost stories, and that he knew that Raizel knew. He was mock-tempting him— _you can't bite my neck, vampire._

"You realise this really is a great honour? Venerable noble, you are the greatest being I could ever hope to share tea with. _Quite daunting_ , as a matter-of-fact," he said airily. "Are you surprised then?"

"That you are human?"

Faust nodded encouragingly.

"…Perhaps."

Faust narrowed his eyes, still smiling.

"How does Dark Spear feel in your wounds?"

"Better after a change of clothes, don't you think?"

Raizel's jaw tightened, something jittery searing within him.

"Yo~ Boss's Boss,"

Red eyes flickered away.

Faust's brows rode up, eyes drifting questioningly to the side. Amusement played on his expression as he reclined into the seat.

* * *

"You still up?" the cheery voice said, "just finished up Boss's code for the security system. I mean, I saw the lights—you know tomorrow…uhh… _today,_ you have school?" Tao tipped himself a cup of water.

"Bowl hair-cut? Very in-fashion."

Tao skirted around, frowning, entire body snagging up. "…Ah, my bad, didn't know we were expecting guests…in the…in the _middle of the night._ Right. Hello. Tao."

He made a confused face to Raizel, as if the words had finally landed, moments later; _Sir, did he just insult my hair?_

Who was this? A friend from school? A Noble Clan Leader? Why the…mask? Or was he another Kertia? But Tao subsided—if he was having tea with Boss's Boss, then he couldn't possibly be any bad news, could he?

 _Tea?_

Tao's eyes fell onto the tray of tea between the two men, and then widened understandably when he reached the teapot—clasped in Raizel's hand.

 _You're_ ** _not_** _serving him tea?_

Tao looked befuddled. Raizel was perfectly capable to make and serve others hot beverages. But if Frankenstein saw this…. _Frankenstein better never see this…_

 _In fact…_ "Um, where's Boss? Sir?"

Raizel put down the porcelain and met Tao's stare squarely. "Tao…"

Vermillion struck Tao, and he was only aware of the deep redness of Raizel's eyes against the slow-blurring room. A wave of grogginess overcame him in great, weightless throngs and his knees grew heavy, his mind grew cloudy; his eyelids couldn't keep open for another second. He opened his mouth to say something, do something, but his muscles were relaxed and his breathing became shallow.

Raizel's hand wavered over Tao.

 ** _"Sleep."_**

Fatigue tipped him over. Tao sunk to the floor and fell immediately asleep.

Raizel looked at him for a long moment.

"Stone cold."

He turned back to the uninvited guest.

"Didn't think you had it in you, for a sec. Clearly, I was wrong. Though that school of yours…you might need to revise your security measures, if he's the best you've got."

Raizel took a timely sip of his tea.

"But to be quite honest, your Principal left me…disappointed, to say the least. All these years, he'd let himself rust."

He paused for second, eyes quickly focusing. "Did you enjoy the book?" He reached to the table, hovering over the cover. Amber eyes flitted up. When Raizel didn't move, he took it. "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Good read, or no?"

"…"

"You didn't like it? Oh. To think I spent all that time picking out the edition. The cover spoke to me." The contorting man on the cover stared at Raizel. His eyes glazed over the inflamed stitches holding the tortured creation together — and then Faust — the red stitches splitting down his black mask in imitation.

Why Frankenstein's monster?

"So, Victor Frankenstein," he mused, flipping the yellowed pages, "did you pity his downfall? Did you see him as a great and inspiring man? Or no, just a bastard?"

His eyes remained smiling but in his aura, Raizel recognised that glowing ember, like daylight _._ How could he not, when he lived his life in solitude for half an eternity just to _get away._ Suppressed but not quelled, Faust's insides festered with a savage kind of hate—so lurid it was almost… inhuman.

"How did such a god fall from grace?" Faust questioned, as if to himself. "Do you want to know the greatest folly of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?"

"…"

"He abandoned his path. He lost his way." Faust's eyes darted up to Raizel. The corners of the book were pushed down by whitening knuckles.

" _And then_ he was charmed by a being he had sworn to hate, _to destroy_ , and put himself below noble scum.

"Like.

"You."

"Ad confirmandas." Raizel's voice drew in an air of power, sending a wave to energy to quash the civilised pretence, silencing Faust. It was soft coming from his lips, yet his voice rang loud and uncanny to behold. "To confirm,

 _"I am_ the Noblesse."

He turned to face him in his seat.

"Whatever you want," he said, " _I_ am here.

"Whatever you want with Frankenstein," he spoke, _"you settle with me."_

"Oh?" Faust's arms lifted from the arm rest, sliding over his crossed knees. He leaned back leisurely.

"Thank you, but no thank you."

Raizel's red eyes glowed through his stare. A spark of frustration coursed, and when Faust saw it, his eyes changed again—his smiling eyes slunk into a pointed smirk.

"It's fine, really. It's not Professor Frankenstein I want. It's you. The Noblesse."

Raizel's eyes widened a fraction. The tea grew unnaturally cold between them.

"Fffrankenstein…" Faust continued, dragging on the name, "he was a means to an end. Look how I played him?" Raizel kept from scrunching his nose. "Does that surprise you? Are you scared? I took down your loyal knight in _one fell swoop."_

His voice took on an edge, and now he let go of his facade, hardly able to hold back his disdain any longer. It rolled off him viscid; the predator within in his eyes looked just about ready to pounce. Raizel parried his amber glare. "I understand." He rose intently from the seat. "Please follow me."

"To where? Pray tell?"

"Outside."

"And why, pray tell?"

"I will answer your grievances. Step out."

"No."

Raizel looked at him again, but his expression wasn't one of threat. It was almost pained. "Do not make me control you. I can."

"No, you can't."

"…Your confidence is over-stretching, Faust."

"Is that why you haven't been able to read my mind?"

Raizel's eyes narrowed. At this, Faust rose from the seat and strode to face him.

"Forget it. I'm not here to fight again anyway. Not tonight. I wonder, Noblesse. Is this what he sees in you? _Oh joy."_ He buckled forward to stifle himself again. "No, honestly, you really are something in the end!" Faust levelled his amber eyes with Raizel again. He was near-gleeful.

"Ah—imagine my surprise—a trillion years of being _let down,_ and you live up to all the Union rabble? No, you surpass it. Propaganda doesn't even do you justice. Pity though. You're still a noble."

Raizel didn't move but Faust stepped forward, speaking slowly, strenuously, "and nobles are filthy, meddling, pretentious… _things_ that practically _bathe_ in their own elitism. Hm. Don't look at me like that… _or perhaps you can't help it?_ I don't think I've ever met a noble who did not see themselves as above a human."

He scoffed. "But of course! It's natural for you to look at me like that, isn't it? You hold yourself like a true Baron to my peasant. Or…let's be quaint, a _master_ to my servant. _Wait."_

Raizel didn't avert his eyes once.

"You're the Noblesse. How about—an executioner to my condemned? Oh, we're all condemned in your eyes… _My_ …I digress."

In a short, deft movement, he stepped closer to Raizel and then brushed passed him. Their shoulders scraped. "Ad confirmandas," he spoke, matter-of-fact. "To confirm, I'm not here for a fight." The lock of the door whirred. "I only wanted to meet you."

Raizel spun around, body first, head turning last to see him. "I did not give you permission…to leave."

"Did you not?" His voice was a pitch too high. Faust stepped outside, simply. "Do I recall giving you permission to invade my brain? Yet you've been trying all night long."

"You do not leave now."

"You forgot Frankenstein, Cadis Etrama di Raizel."

Raizel stiffened. What did he mean?

"He was dying to use Dark Spear on me. He didn't, you know. He didn't."

It dawned on him.

An icy coldness seized Raizel.

"All this time you blatantly tried to crack open my mind…how do you think Frankenstein will fare alone with his dreams?" Faust began chanting, chanting that old child's rhyme, _"concentration; concentration-now-begins…2,4 — 6,8 — you're a terrible master, Cadis Etrama di Raizel."_

Raizel was gone, a current stirring in his wake after a second. Faust was caught off guard by his light speed. It was as if he had yet to put two and two together—that arrogant, poised nobles, _could_ in fact bother themselves to move that fast. He closed his mouth, lingering for moment to himself.

"You care about him a lot."

He closed the door behind him with a click.

* * *

Heya,

So as you can see I totally watched that bbc sherlock ep where moriarty creeps around to sherlock's place and they have a passive aggressive chat over tea. This is that. But with Tao. Poor Tao.

Will have to put in the notes on the creative choices - the language etc- in the next chapter.

(Also I wonder if the 'concentration' game is universal? I googled it but can't be sure. Basically, its a rhythm counting game that requires concentration: _concentration; concentration-now-begins *clap, clap*_ _start now *clap, clap*_ _2,4 *clap,clap* 6,8... and then the counting continues...)_

Thanks 3


	10. Memory Lane

Gratitude to the betas Kaikouken and Argonautica. They make the fic all readable and nice~

* * *

 **Memory lane**

Once, the great search led Frankenstein to London at the turn of the 15th century. He remembered the grisly plot to usurp government in their despotism, and listening to the people in the following days claw the perpetrators apart.

 _Remember, remember, the fifth of November, of gunpowder, treason and plot._

Guy Fawkes: the epitome of patriots, or crazed extremist terrorist? It didn't matter in the end, because he was caught. For days on end, the Tower of London echoed with the sounds of his screams.

Some centuries on, apparently the later generations would come to an agreement—Guy Fawkes was being celebrated, and not the survival of King James I's government. But in 1606, amid a barrage of fireworks, a great bonfire was lit in commemoration, either in gratefulness or in warning. Why _not_ celebrate the day government didn't blow up? Hundreds would flock to the squares, gawking at nothing more than a stack of dry wood on fire.

He was there once, shoved into the centre of the crowd as people convulsed around him and the heat of the bonfire made him clammy. He watched the flames rise, and dance, scrawling up the pile of deliberate wreckage until it enclosed everything in fire: the ground, the air and the hay-stuffed, scarecrowish visage of Mister Guy Fawkes. The buttons on his face melted, the woollen wig on his head singed away, and the hundred cheering voices became one, joyous shriek.

It was in this moment, when his throat clenched up, his hands furled into fists, that Frankenstein felt he was breathing in ashes. Burning up from the inside out.

He'd been here before. _Yes._ Where had he been here before? Frankenstein gasped in the ashen smoke: inhaling in cinders, Guy Fawkes—

And a boy with blonde hair.

Dark spear blossomed awake. **_That boy?_**

And with one more push forward by the crowd, one more step towards the fire, he clenched his eyes shut. He went blind. When he opened them again, the chants were louder, the smoke blacker, and he knew why. He could smell it in the air and he remembered it clear as yesterday. The smell of smouldering flesh.

"WITCH!

"Witch! Witches!"

 _Yes,_ he'd been here before.

"SPAWN OF THE DEVIL!"

"God's wounds, filth! Burn in HELL!"

Just like this.

"WITCH-CUR!"

Circa 1560 AD was a less forgiving time than most.

The first of the witch hunts had spilled over into the Germanic lands, and the air was filled with the shrill screams of countrymen demanding peace, purification, and some damned good entertainment. He saw row by rows of women: their eyes bruised, their cheeks harrowed with finger nails missing and rope burns drawing blood. They were beaten half-mad, unable to even "confess": teeth plucked, tongues cut and limp limbs bound to row by row of stakes, forcing their skins white from loss of circulation. At their feet, hay piles adorned the make-shift stages like a crown, and they were cheered on by an audience of hundreds. He watched them light up with fire and scream, scream; and he knew now why Dark Spear screamed too. They scorched until their skin became flakes and blood became boiled; until their bodies grew chapped and their bones were blackened.

On that day, humanity was sick and he was human. And every time he closed his eyes, a million voices were joined by one other, a higher, younger, and _oh-so_ familiar one.

 _'Professor! You have to get away from here — the elders are saying they will kill you! Prof…you knew?'_

"...Tesamu..."

He closed his eyes and Tesamu was the one up on that stage, engulfed by those flames and burning alive until his screams rang hoarse.

 _So they've killed you after all?_

"TESAMU!"

Frankenstein doubled over, retching convulsively, emptying the contents of his supper onto the footprint-embedded dirt.

" _Oi!_ Good grace, we've a man down here, step back you all ought to!"

"What the-"

"Filth-"

"You alright sir?"

"Outta the wa-"

 _Tesamu._

"F-fine," he slurred. "No such thing..." he mumbled.

 ** _Professor_**

"…Mister?"

"No—"

 ** _Ffrankenstein?_**

"...no such thing... as witches... _innocent._ "

He spat on the ground, expecting blood when there was none.

"Innocent..."

He got up.

The myriad of faces enclosing him began to sway and move and he held on with his knees as the ground lurched beneath him. As sudden as a firework in the sky, and all at once, the eras caught up with him; the stakes shrivelled back into the ground, the scorched women faded away, the screams transformed back into cheers:

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November!"

Ah yes. Guy Fawkes. Bonfire commemoration. _Really? A bonfire? How sentimental. And irrational._

"Of gunpowder, treason, and plot!"

Frankenstein looked up.

Guy Fawkes was gone. From above the crowd, the fire cackled louder and the people were moving back, giving him space. Yet steadily, the flames crept nearer.

He opened his mouth to gag, but nothing came out.

 _No._

The pile of wood bloomed into a mountain of corpses, and he couldn't make a sound when he tried to scream. His voice, stolen. The corpses piled up, piled up, and through the cinders he could see just enough clearly. At the peak of the pile there were the blistering remains of people he didn't know yet.

1606 AD, and he could see a man with werewolf's fur. A man with short hair, and another with long. A pair that could be siblings — all in strange clothes. Fire ravaged them and they would singe away until they became all the same. Broken and bashed, scorched and scorned. His mouth was open and he was tasting their ashes, trying to yell, but even the crowd became mute. They ogled on in silence.

The stake began to change, now it was a cross and he didn't want to look, couldn't bear to look; he begged Dark Spear _not to make him look._ Cadis Etrama di Raizel was sprawled upon the stake, his arms tied back, thorns cutting into his wrists, faded eyes open yet unseeing. Fire scorched back his youthful veneer, boring out white, white skull out from torn and tattered cheek.

 _"Ah,_

 _"ah…_

 _"Ah!"_

He couldn't scream.

 _"Professor?"_ _"_ _Tesamu."_

 _"I want to learn more_ _so that I can help lots of people, just like you do…_

 _"Just like you do."_

 **"Frankenstein."**

 _You can't save them all._

 _You can't save these people._

 **"Frankenstein. Wake up!"**

 _You can't save anyone._

Something broke, and gasped aloud. It wasn't like before. When he woke up, and he would, they would still be there. Gejutel's boy — Regis, Miss Seira, Takeo, Tao and M-21. But not the boy.

"Master, I'm here."

Frankenstein subsided, let go his panic, and followed his Master's voice out of the dream.

He was a dreamer. And he wondered, so often through the ages:

 _How did Tesamu die?_

* * *

"Frankenstein — hear my voice, and I command you,

 **"Wake up."**

 _"_ _Hhh!"_

He opened his eyes. Crystal blue met crimson red.

"Master."

Bile shot up, escaping through the entrance of his throat, and he found his stomach muscles were stiff from hurling in the dreamscape. It was always so real. He swallowed the sour-sweet juice down. It left his tongue bitter. When it sprang back up again, he made a focused effort to not clench his eyes as he retched over his tightly closed mouth. Only a low churn caught in his oesophagus, and he desperately hoped it wasn't loud enough to hear. He didn't even dare clear his throat.

Frankenstein shuffled weakly, trying to prop himself up. To his utter horror, Raizel braced a hand on his sweat-damp back, a hand on his arm, and lifted him into a sitting position. "No-I…I can move." Raizel let go, quickly, and Frankenstein bit into his cheek. He moved wearily on the test slab, swinging his feet stiffly over the edge as if somehow a dozen wounds littered his body.

And embers still burned his throat.

Soot and sick smeared all over, inside him.

"Frankenstein," Raizel murmured anxiously. "How do you feel?"

Frankenstein clutched his hands onto the sides of the test slab, hiding the quake in his knuckles.

"I feel alright now. Thank you, Master," he stated, creakily.

"…Dark Spear had pulled you deep, this time. I had trouble…calling you back. Can you remember what happened before you slept?"

Frankenstein nodded once. "The school…I fought a man with a mask. Dark Spear wanted to be let out, but they weren't. You said…" The realisation dawned on him coldly. "You said, Master…that you would make it so I had a dreamless sleep."

Raizel hung his head.

"Is this…is this my punishment?"

The Noblesse snapped up. "No!" He looked at Frankenstein, eyes strangely wide, and gaped. _How could he think I would…_

"No, Frankenstein. I would _never_ …"

"Forgive me for accusing!" Frankenstein looked equally mortified. "I… _please forget I ever said that._ I'm sorry."

"Frankenstein…" Raizel muttered, "this is my failure. I let myself be distracted and I didn't come to your aid. I am so sorry."

"No-" Frankenstein stared back, looking troubled. He swallowed down. "If I apologise again…can you…not?"

"No."

"Hh."

Raizel relaxed a little, almost slouching beside him. Frankenstein swallowed again, trying to rid his greasy saliva of that sourish taste.

"But to be perfectly honest, Master, if you wanted to punish me you shouldn't have woken me up. It defeats the purpose, doesn't it?" he said lightly.

"Don't-" Raizel started. He laid a hand onto the test slab, and it curled into a fist. "-don't ever _joke_ about that, Frankenstein. Your anguish is not humorous. Dark Spear tortures you enough, and I won't ever let them have you." He sighed. "They _cannot_ have you."

"I'm yours."

It was sharp, piercing, a knife-tip of a thought, but as soon as another something flashed through Frankenstein's mind, they both froze. Both men stared at one another, looking as if they didn't know what to do next.

"Yo, Bosses? What exactly am I doing? Like, I woke up and the guy was gone…" Tao stopped in his tracks. "…Boss…es?…Are you OK?"

"Marvellous, Tao," Frankenstein exclaimed, jumping off the test slab energetically. "What do you mean? What guy?"

"Ah—"

In a half-second, Raizel's eyes flared red, catching Tao's sight. He shook his head, pleadingly.

"—noope. Nope, um…I was up late and I was waiting for…the mail…to…arrive," he finished, stupidly. "Online purchase," he added.

Frankenstein eyed him suspiciously, but then loosened up. "You've being awfully lenient with your pay check, lately. Tao, I want you to go check the school's security footage. Do a full sweep. I want eyes on _everything."_

"Er, Boss?" he piped up, a little more than confused. Waking up on the floor and Sir Raizel being weird and then this? "I checked it all last week. I mean, security in the courtyards and the major places. Can't I just wait a month?" _Isn't it too early?_

 _"_ _No!"_

Tao took a step back at his tone.

"You can't just _wait a month."_ Frankenstein's voice was dangerously low, and he seemed to realise this as well. Something closed behind his eyes. He drew back, flicking a few oddly twitchy fingers through his hair. A lurid tongue rolled back as he swallowed again. The taste stuck to the walls of his mouth.

 _"_ _Ehem._ Tao. Just — I need you to check the footage because of funny business reported by the parents, last night. The school's publicity depends on it," he lied. "I don't have the specific details, but I need you to do this."

"Ok. Got it, Boss. On it already." Tao meant, _later._

"Thank you. Now if you'll bring Master up for some tea, I'll wash up and cook breakfast."

Tao shot a weary grin at Raizel.

The three of them walked away, Raizel stiller than usual, watching Frankenstein avert his eyes the entirety of the elevator journey. Like he'd said something he couldn't take back.

* * *

I really liked this alternate title, but I thought it might have spoiled the first part of the chapter - 'Dream within a dream within a memory.'

Laryna6, Kaikouken, Tears, Guest, Elims, kryliadarr, pinkpigflying, XxDarkBeautyxX and ColdApril,

Thank you very much for your support and reviews, I read them, smile like an idiot during class, and then read them again and again and again. Next chapter will be a long one~


	11. Down the Rabbit Hole

**Disclaimer:** Noblesse belongs to Jeho Son, Kwangsu Lee and line webtoons. I have no affiliation with Noblesse.

 **Credits:** Beta'd by Kaikouken (Nerdanel on AO3) and Argonautica. You guys rock.

* * *

I would just like to clarify here:

'Elizabet' - German pronunciation

'Elizabeth' - English pronunciation

* * *

 **16th Century**

 **Gregorian Calendar MDLXXXVII**

 **Year 1587**

 **Duchy of Württemberg**

 **South-east Germany**

Faust.

"Any last words before your rightful demise, _Miss_ Elizabet?" a man's voice said, as if it were beneath his tongue to strain.

 _"_ _Rightful?"_

Her words cleaved out of her bruised mouth. Rope twisted around her raw wrists and with a heave from her captors, the woman was wrangled to the ground. A boot connected with her bony figure. _"Kngh!"_ A small crack. "—Still convinced that this is just? What you're doing?" she sighed, blowing her cut hair out of her botched face, her torn nostril.

"Elizabet, there is still time to cleanse yourself of your impurities. You only have to look to the Lord and repent your sins. Confess, I bid you to confess before you are punished, and may the Lord have mercy upon your damned soul!"

"You make the Lord sick."

A hand grabbed her face, slamming her head down onto a newly-cut tree stump. She opened her mouth, eyes shut, face contorting as she willed not to make a single, pitiful sound. Blood soaked into the stump's yellow centre.

A hot voice tickled her ear. "You're unclean, Elizabet."

The other man continued. "Hear, hear! Kill the devil's woman! On this day, under the Lord's own clear judgement, we send this wretched thing back to where she came from. The devil's door!"

A series of muffled yelps and whoops. This wasn't a celebration.

"And now, your soul will be cleansed."

Elizabet squirmed under the executioner's hold, scowling at the clergyman's face and kicking another captor. Not to escape, she was a dead woman, but more to cause as much trouble as her brittle, starved body could muster. If she was going to die, she wasn't going to let them have it easy.

"Elizabet!"

She froze. When the quiet seeped through her skin, she could see some of the villagers crying. A couple turned their heads, another woman held in their sobs. _No._ If she went this way, who knows how they would all be accused in a couple months? Next week? Tomorrow? The second her head touches iron pike? She bit into her tongue, gnashing flesh.

"Cleanse her—"

 _"_ _Pfft!"_ She spat in the man's face as he leered. Her blood sprayed across the grounds.

 _"_ _You!"_

"I confess," she said, simply. Red trickled down her chin and her deadpan face held its stare.

"Papers." The captors bought the official papers. Her thumbprint was stamped onto wax. It was officially a just death.

"Now, we shall commence. Any last words?"

"When I prayed to the devil, I made sure to mention your name—every, single, night." She swallowed more blood. "I'll see you soon."

"Kill it."

The executioner walked forward purposefully, both hands clutching rusted axe, bringing it over his head. Her name echoed across the land, and she didn't try to distinguish friend from foe, from family from foreigner. _Goodbye._ And the woman didn't blink as the blade came down, and the crowd was soundless.

All hell broke loose.

From the deafening disarray of voices came others, more grievous and in mourning than the rest. _"Elizabet?!"_

The woman clenched her eyes and forced them open. Men lay languidly on the floor beside her.

"This is hardly a fair trial, is it? Everybody?" A blonde-haired man had caught the tip of the axe between his bare fingers.

 _"_ _Faust?"_ she breathed.

* * *

The convicted woman gaped as she watched the executioner's grip tighten and writhe, muscles straining as he tried to free the weapon. The blonde man opened his mouth, cocking his head as if deeply disappointed. He flung his hand, easily pulling the axe forward by the blade. In one incredulous _'donk,'_ the executioner landed splayed over the dirt where she had spat her blood. He didn't bother with another thought for the executioner.

"Lady Elizabeth," the man said. He pulled her up, but Elizabet only straightened before she fell back to sit. "Don't — they've broken my ribs."

He pulled his hands off her, but she shook her head to him, smiling. "Go. I'm already a dead woman."

The blonde man frowned and rolled his eyes away. "Do you even have the slightest semblance of proof of her accusations?!" His voice reverberated over the frenzied crowd.

Their mutters sounded into a blur, but quickly muffled into silence as the clergyman stood, "a straight confession, good sir. Confession — and all the details match up. That _thing_ is a heathen."

 _"_ _Confession?"_ he hissed.

 _Lady Elizabeth, what is this?_

The woman nodded a gaunt head to him, both arms clutched over her centre. She'd condemned herself. _For what?_ Her blood spotted the soles of his shoes. The sobs of the other women reached his ears.

He was so hell-fucking sick of this.

"Fine. I'm here to testify: Lady Elizabet is innocent."

Voices rose in an uproar, and the blonde man slit his eyes down to a sneer, forcing half of them quiet. The other half tested his patience. Hundreds of years, and he'd no damned patience left to humour humanity for another tick of the clock.

"The proof ends all discussion! That thing will die!"

"You mean this proof?" The blonde man snatched up the papers. The axe swung haphazardly out of his hand, and he guided it down in two fingers as if it were feather-light. He un-scrunched it to read, but cringed as soon as the first or second word hit his eyes. He began to tear it into two pieces, dragging the sear of ripping-paper out before the crowd.

"Anything else?"

The clergyman was fuming. But this man was something to contend with. "A full confession. We all lay witness," he stated, politely.

Elizabet turned to the blonde man. _"Let it go_ Faust! They won't let all of us go free. People must die or they won't be happy. I'll be the witch, just go!"

"Oh yes," the blonde man said boredly, ignoring her. "Yes, yes. But I concur, definitively, irrevocably, Lady Elizabet is innocent."

"On what grounds?!" came another angered voice.

"Because _I_ confess."

Elizabeth whipped her head up to glare at the idiot.

"I'm the man you're all looking for. Try executing me," he said, tapping a finger on his tilted neck. "I'm _very_ unclean."

"That's ridiculous!"

Voices sounded over the crowd again.

"Forget it, just sentence him too!"

"He's a liar!—"

Elizabet got to her feet, wincing as she tried to near the man. "Stop this — _stop_ this. I don't need you to try and—"

 _"Confess?"_ he said, rolling his head to her in disdain. "But I just _did."_ When the man's eyes fell on her limping form, he spasmed. The man dropped the axe and moved instantly to steady her. _"I'm sorry, Lady Elizabeth,"_ he croaked _, "I'm sorry."_

"Nobody believes a sham confession like yours," the clergyman leered.

Elizabet wrung a hand over the blonde man's wrist, stopping him as he lunged to face them all. Her nails dug into him. "Don't."

He didn't look at her. "Sorry."

The man trailed his sleeve out of her bony grip and walked to centre stage. "I just pled guilty that I did…." he blinked a couple of times, "whatever she did…Crimes against the Lord!" he quickly fixed.

Hateful eyes stared back. "Prove it," the clergyman spat.

The blonde man lifted his sight, showing his neck in a jeer. His smiling mouth bared a dark, toothy grin.

"Ok."

His hands burst into flames.

The clergyman's eyes popped wide, and the audience twisted apart, nothing but unadulterated panic seeping through the heated up air. Elizabet balked. There was screaming and running in all directions, and the blonde man lifted his smouldering purple hands, letting everybody see them crackle and hook into gnarled claws. The flames danced over his skin — a burrowing, parasitic aura infesting over the surface as they seeped into bone. The flames simmered lower, and the man shut his eyes. Concentration skimmed over his face, and then belatedly, he lifted his hands up. He hovered an exaggerated pattern over the people.

Screams caught in throats. The entire village was paralysed.

"That's right. Look here. I'm going to say it again." His eyes flicked over to the frozen clergyman. "I. Confess."

The blonde man bounded away from the centre, slowing to stop before a bush. A purple-scattering hand waved over the greenery. Smiling back with blank eyes, he waited for the colour of their faces to drain and for some to faint. A few bodies dropped unconscious to the ground, and his brows lifted in amusement. Behind him, the green of the bush began to curtail and fade, the leaves shrivelling over the touch of his purple and flowers wilting in unnatural speed. Its vitality dried up like spilt water on a hot day, like smoke stream from a doused candle light. The plant crinkled back into the ground as a dusty skeleton.

"I'm the sorcerer," he stated proudly. His eyes hooded as a scowl curled over. "I also eat children, kill doves, drink blood…and bless whatever black cat I can find in my path," his brow ticked, "…and I go after corrupt officials, unkind villagers…and unfaithful men! Just for your information."

He sauntered leisurely up to the clergyman. A long, flaming finger tapped under his chin. "And I have tea with the devil every Tuesday. Guess what day it is today, good sir?" The clergyman's eyes began to roll and turn up, but the blonde man clicked his fingers, concentrating his mind control — this one doesn't get to faint out so _damned easy._

"Faust…"

He hardly stopped himself from flinching. The blonde man turned slowly back to the battered woman. Her huffs were laced with wheezes, and his heart palpitated hearing her every struggling breath.

"You're a…sorcerer?"

He managed a weak smile. "Thank you for teaching me modern French and English, Lady Elizabeth." He tottered forward, hand extinguishing as he reached out. She recoiled back.

"…Tell everybody who I am, My Lady." He turned to the village again, raising his voice. "Tell everybody my name is Faust."

Elizabet scowled at him. "What?! You just admit that I've taught an abomination for all this time?! What the — what the hell are you trying to do?!" She gagged, sucking in air as blood trailed from her lips. "…Release these people. Right now."

The man shut his eyes. The screaming resumed.

"…Now get out of here. They'll be after you forever. _Run_ , Faust," she got up on rickety legs, broken bones. "I won't give them a shred of anything on you. Just run."

The blonde man's expression softened. He spoke English — his words meant for Elizabet's ears alone.

"Frankenstein."

"What?"

"I wanted to tell you my real name."

"…Why now?" she whispered.

"Because you won't remember it."

Elizabet was suddenly struck with his eyes, a gorging, piercing blue. She was entrenched, and all of a sudden, it was as if she was being slowly submerged under their chasmic waters, beyond the black pupils of the horizon. As she sunk, and sunk, her memories began to ripple and dilute; and with one waver back, blonde hair, blue eyes, disappeared from her slipping grasp.

 _"Goodbye, Lady Elizabeth."_

When she awoke, Faust was the name of the Devil's contractor. She remembered purple flames, though she didn't know why.

And Frankenstein — she'd never even heard the name.

* * *

 **Down the rabbit hole**

"Go check the security footage already, Tao!" Tao swung his feet onto the counter, throwing back his head with a dramatic flair.

"But good sir, I've just checked last week's, can't we let it go for a sec before I break my eyes looking?" He slammed his finger from a metre height onto the 'enter' button, making another false, surprised face. "What? What is this?! Delaying watching _mindless_ security footage for one, entire day? Madness!"

Tao flicked his hair over his eyes, yelling blindly. "Outrage!"

He bought a fist down onto the desk — THACK — then retracted it like he'd just put fleshy hand onto hot stove — _oh phew, left no marks on the desk, lord almighty._ The nervous sweat that threatened to pour, didn't. "Got myself there, heh."

He sat quietly for awhile longer tapping away before his fingers on the computer began to slow. Gradually, uncannily, the clack-clacking slowed to a stop and Tao looked up from the screen. The realisation was strange. He doubted himself. Tao was designed to collect and analyse intel, and his mind was a buzzing hard drive that processed information like machine gun fire. He sat back, hovering his feet over the table, and then dropped them limply. _'Thud.'_

 _Oh._

So he wasn't just reading too far into things.

Tao was the weakest member of the DA-5; he was the weakest member of the RK. But he was also the smartest, and still many times stronger than the unmodified human. The slight shock-wave of bone-on-table reverberated over him, and he had thought nothing of the feeling. Until he realised this was meant to be the lowest floor of Boss's lab.

Then why did the ground feel hollow under the desk?

Tao impulsively stood from the table, sending the computer chair skirting to the side. He bobbed to one knee and cautiously, rapped his knuckles under the desk. The impact echoed over him. Tao sat back languidly, tilting his head. _Ok. So, now what?_ Was he going to break up the tiles on Boss's lowest floor and accidentally have the entire house cave in? _Unlikely,_ he thought, the house foundations had to be good for such low levels of floors to be constructed—there was no way there was going to be some batman-ish cave under there. It was definitely purposely constructed.

Why was this lower, lowest floor not on the elevator then?

Tao sighed exasperatedly into the air. What was happening these days? He was keeping Raizel-nim's visitor a secret from Frankenstein, now he was going to snoop around his basement?

Tao's eyes darted to the far elevator door, then flicked to his watch arm. Frankenstein should be busy enough and no one should be bothering him on the lowest floor when they knew he had work. On a damned whim, he used an outstretched leg to push over the entire desk.

 _Woah. Am I really going to do this?_

Cables disconnected from the computer, but he could fix that easily enough.

 _Shit. I'm really going to do this._

Tao rocked himself up and scraped the desk over a couple metres more. A whiter floor patch met him back. He skimmed his eyes lazily over the floor, but then shut them, annoyed at himself. _Sigh._ If he was going to snoop, he might as well put his heart into it. When his eyes blinked open, he scanned the place with enhanced keenness. There was a subtle incline in the ground, something like a sunken circle on the floor. Tao knocked a fist over it.

 _Knock._

 _Dude._ How deep did this place stretch on?

With one more quarter glance behind him, he used some strength. The entire tiled corner cracked into tiny crevices.

 _Mother._

Suddenly intensely still, Tao internally screamed before he had to shut even that part of himself up. _What if Raizel-nim heard?! What if Frankenstein just felt stuff? What if Regis came and told on me why did I have to do this gosh why does this — why did the tiles not cave in?_

His eyes traced the creviced floor. Tao lifted a couple fragments up. _Huh?_ Wood. Very, very old wood. He touched a hand to the rickety material, and pulled away when it creaked dangerously under him. Wood that was about to flake away in his hand. There was a wooden trapdoor under the tiled floor under the desk under the floors of the house.

Boss was going to kill him.

Tao brushed his mess back, revealing the trapdoor. _I'm going to hell,_ he thought, as he opened the door. A musty smell wafted from beneath. The glaring white walls of the lower lab hid a dark, dank staircase that dug even further into the ground. _Journey to the centre of the world! Let's,_ he thought, grimly, as he descended into the dark.

* * *

"Whoa — Hey?!" Takeo interjected as Tao swiped his lemonade out of his hands and chugged it down in one continuous, miffed gulp.

 _"Ahh!"_ he sighed.

Takeo batted Tao's hand away as he returned him the empty cup. "What was that?"

"No fighting in the living room, high schoolers," droned M-21 as he walked pass.

"M-21!" Tao called out, and M-21 spun to lift a brow.

 _"My lemonade!"_

"You guys have to see this!"

M-21 only blinked.

"No, honestly! Something's up and I need to show you guys," Tao strained.

Takeo made a face and stood. "I thought you were meant to be working."

"I WAS working! Until…about half an hour ago. Just c'mon, before Boss kills me."

That got them both rushing behind Tao. Tao could hardly contain himself as they took their ride down the high-speed elevator, and when the doors popped open he practically dragged Takeo and M-21 to the hole in the lab.

 _….the hole in the lab?_ Takeo faltered. "Tao…what did you do?"

"No, _look_ at this, you guys have to come down the stairs and _see this!_ "

They made their way down the spiral staircase, the wind from their lungs cooling as they descended. It looked like Tao had moved every single battery powered light source into the tunnel—old phones, torches and lamps…he was so in trouble. But Takeo couldn't worry about that right now. His sniper's eyes drank in the strange rock-stacked walls of the tunnel. It smelt lurid and dense around him, and he knew the air here hadn't touched daylight or wide spaces for…how old was Frankenstein? Centuries? _More than 800 years_ , he guessed, contemplatively.

The rough of the wall scraped onto his finger, and Takeo knew why it felt so dark in here. The rock was charred, as if covered in an inch of soot that had long sunk in and become a crunching layer with the wall. Evidence of fire damage poured out to his senses. The crusty edges, the dusty debris kicked up and—

"Here!" An emptied room stood doorless on the right. Tao gestured to the left. Takeo could tell where the burns had eaten away the hinges, and the remnants of the door—they were probably breathing in.

"…What is this place?" M-21 asked, baffled look on his face.

"Somewhere where we probably shouldn't be, I'm guessing," Takeo said, sifting through the remaining old scrolls. Once, this stone shelf would have been full of this stuff—scrolls and books and information, a treasure trove of things that the Union would happily kill for. Things that bought Frankenstein to the twenty first century. This place was _intense._

M-21 didn't turn his head. "So that's why this floor was boarded off," he said, engrossed in another parchment that broke away under his hand — _oh crap — I just destroyed how to identify cholera symptoms in 775._

 _"_ What happened here," Tao's hushed voice drew their attentions. "Look at all the burn marks."

"I know. Look at this," Tao said. He lifted something like a framed piece of parchment, with the glass hastily cleaned over with Tao's sleeve. It wasn't in Korean, but Takeo could make out the alphabet, and Frankenstein's name.

"Professor Frankenstein, of the University of Ingolstadt. Deutschland," Tao recited, "that's Germany." He handed the piece over to Takeo to squint at, not sure what to make of it. "There's a heap of other stuff here. Everything was in a total mess when I found it. Someone tried to burn this place, but this pile of stuff didn't get destroyed. Here — _Doctor_ Frankenstein!" Tao smiled, impressed. "He actually got his qualifications, you know…sometime in BC or AD or whatnot!"

"BC stands for 'before Christ,'" came a cold voice from the door. "Or now, just 'before common era.' AD stands for _'anno domini_ , in the year of the Lord."

* * *

The blood drained from all three of their faces.

"Boss?!"

"I've only existed in AD, for your information."

 _"F-Frankenstein."_

"What are you three doing?" Frankenstein glared over his pair of cracked glasses, standing in the eroded doorway.

"…What happened to your glasses, Boss?"

"Answer the question, Tao. I thought I had you looking at security footage."

"…"

M-21 delicately put down another fragilely bound book. "Frankenstein, look-"

"Oh my gosh, M-21!" Tao interjected quickly, "Jeepers man. This was all me. I'm sorry, Boss, what happened was, I found the ground under the table was hollow, like, really hollow, and something came over me and I…followed my nose until I found this place. _Yeah,_ I should have alerted you, but you were busy doing your thing and I… _I was really curious,"_ Tao said in a half-mumble.

"You broke into this room," Frankenstein didn't look normal, "…because you were _curious?"_

Tao nodded, and gulped.

To his surprise, Frankenstein sighed and walked over, reaching a hand out. Takeo gave over his scroll to him. "Can you even read this?" he asked, after a more bearable silence than they'd thought.

"Uhh. No. Not really." Takeo replied, smiling nervously.

"Archaic language from way back when," Frankenstein huffed, "stuff that's hardly relevant anymore. Even I'll have trouble deciphering it."

"Really? Even you?"

"Hmm. I wrote down all my work in different languages, ones that have long lapsed out of use, and then with the important parts, I coded it."

"Woah." Tao breathed. "So then whose is this," he turned another paper up to them, "looks like a medieval pop quiz! Is that a child's handwriting?" he grinned. "Little Boss's early work?"

"Forget it," Frankenstein said, ripping up the historical paper in his hands and Takeo winced. "This is all garbage now. This room failed to burn. I'll have that safely finished once you all leave and get some showers. I'm not letting you walk around the house near Master with that _smell_ on you."

"What?" Takeo piped up, "What do you mean? You're actually going to get rid of all this? Didn't you save this room?"

Wasn't this important to him? Takeo knew, if he had even a shred of his past returned to him, he couldn't imagine what it'll mean. He looked to M-21. His split mouth was parted. For M-21…forget his past, if he had even the good fortune of finding his name, the names of his comrades — he could die peaceful.

"I forgot." Frankenstein's flat voice rung in Takeo's ears.

"…"

Frankenstein tilted his head wryly. "Honestly, I forgot this place even existed."

"Who tried to burn this place?" M-21 asked. "Or did you casually try to destroy your bunker room in…AD 500?"

"That would be _500 AD,_ and no, I wasn't even born yet then, M-21."

"Sorry for snooping but—"

"Professor Frankenstein, do you _ever_ forget _anything?"_ Tao asked.

An icy glare fell upon him.

Tao continued, oblivious. "You...you forgot. I mean...Boss forgot his secret, underground room in his secret, underground fort in his secret, underground…lab?" He looked confusingly offended for a short moment. "Wait a sec, then how many floors does your house have underground? I mean, Prof, you're missing the opportunity—could we make a spa room?!"

 _"Shut your mouth, Tao."_

Tao's goofiness wiped off him like his grin, and he drooped, honestly lowering his head. Suddenly, nothing was funny, and he got it—he'd overstepped some line, done something he shouldn't have done. Going into this room punishable on pain of doing a month's dishes was one thing, but this, this was serious. "Professor, I'm sorry, hones-"

"Don't _call_ me that!"

Tao stumbled back into Takeo. He went quiet.

Frankenstein's eyes flashed with an anger they'd only ever seen on the battlefield, and it chilled the room with his aura. The second passed. Tao stood there, quiet. And scared. Frankenstein balked, visibly balked — disgust that wasn't directed at Tao plastered on his face. The violent aura swept away as suddenly as it came, and Frankenstein averted his eyes. He briskly turned away.

Takeo spoke up. "Frankenstein?"

"...Tao..." Frankenstein said gently, barely a whisper against Takeo's voice. "Tao...I am sorry. I didn't mean to—I...overreacted." The modified humans stood frozen, the ample uncertainty, the hesitant waver in Frankenstein's voice a stranger. A stranger they never wanted to hear again. "You didn't deserve that and I apologise. Tao, Takeo and M-21, I am sorry. I...frankly, this—"

 _"Pffftt."_ Tao lunged his hands to cover his mouth. "Pff- ohmygod, I'm sorrysorry... It's just that, that…you said, 'frankly.' "

Frankenstein turned, truly facing them again for the first time. They realised this too. "Get...get it? Frankenstein? Frankly? Ahah!...no? Takeo?!" He waved a hand through his head, messily tousling his hair, and with that, instantly told Frankenstein: _'look I'm fine just please don't apologise oh hell, I've gotta lighten the atmosphere Takeo halp.'_

 _Hell, I'm a mess,_ Frankenstein berated himself, not-out-loud.

A black hand scathed the back of his neck, and the hairs there pricked in a jarring bracing.

 ** _The boy?_**

Frankenstein inhaled sharply. _No! Just go._

"Boss?" M-21 murmured finally, after taking everything in. He seldom called him that. "Frankenstein, look, it was our fault in the first place and—"

 ** _You're remembering the boy…_**

"Shut up."

"..."

"Oh! M-21, that wasn't for you I...I was telling Dark spear..."

He looked up again, feeling the confusion in their eyes. _Wow._ He sounded crazy. _Well, they're not wrong for thinking that._

 _"Haah_. Let's just go upstairs and forget about this mess. Don't worry about those things, I'll tidy it myself later. Can't have you messing up my stuff."

Takeo twitched. The Boss had just proved that he'd had no idea of his secret, underground bunker. The Boss had just expressed intention to get rid of said secret, underground bunker.

"Tao, don't apologise again. I was in the wrong."

This was getting mighty uncomfortable. "Woah, _Boss ok,_ it's fine."

Frankenstein set a stiff jaw and smiled. "I'll make it up to you."

"What did he say?" M-21 said.

Frankenstein looked to him through the corner of his eyes. His lips thinned into a line.

"What are you-what were you so angry about."

"Nothing." His response was too fast.

M-21 swallowed. "Boss?"

 _Don't poke, M-21, don't poke._

"...Professor Frankenstein," he said starkly.

Frankenstein didn't move, but he could feel the modified humans' brace themselves like he felt the army do, ducking their heads and helmets in their trenches in 1915: waiting for a time bomb to go off. M-21 cut the red wire. He swallowed dryly, eyes tracing to Frankenstein as he averted Takeo's shake of the head. _Don't do it, M-21._

"Professor F-"

Another figure emerged from the doorway. "Miss Seira is nearly done with our meals."

Frankenstein whipped his head around, throwing his hair behind him. "Master?" he clenched a hand to his chest and fell into a bow. M-21, Takeo and Tao dipped their heads in acknowledgement too. A pile of rotten books tumbled from the eroding shelf to the floor, and the trio looked up from a mist of cindery dust.

"Hello Sir," Tao waved from behind the smog.

Frankenstein peeked through his blonde hair, but all Raizel could see was the cracked surface of the glasses lens. "I will be up shortly to prepare it Master." _How did he find this place?_

"I heard the ruckus," Raizel said, carefully.

Heard? Twelve floors down through solid concrete? _Goddammit!_ Frankenstein had let Raizel feel his childishness. _Forgive me, Master._

"It is nothing," Raizel said, apparently answering no one. M-21 blinked. "Come," a warm smile stretched across his face. "Come upstairs now. It is mealtime. Seira has kindly prepared everything. Regis may need help setting the table."

Tao and Takeo sighed and M-21 nodded to him on his way out.

Raizel stood with Frankenstein to his side. "Are you alright, Frankenstein?"

 ** _Are you alright? Professor?_**

"Yes, Master. Please head up to the house now, it's quite grimy in here. I'll help Seira finish the last dishes." Raizel didn't say another thing as he followed Frankenstein's gesture out, hearing the careful thump of the trapdoor closing away the spiral staircase. The dirty room on the left, and the empty chamber on the right.

Frankenstein was lying.

He wasn't alright.

* * *

 **Deals with the Devil: the Anthology**

 _Und hätt' er sich auch nicht dem Teufel übergeben, Er müßte doch zu Grunde gehn!_

 _And were he not the devil's by his bond, Yet must his soul infallibly be lost! — scene VII, Goethe's Faust._

"Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a limited term. Deeply bored and disillusioned, Faust wanted more. A life as a highly successful scholar could not strike him enough fancy. Allured by black magic, the sorcerer ultimately descends to doom through his own hubris. God is forsaken. The Devil is summoned. The pact is made — the Devil promises to grant worldly knowledge and magical powers. To seal his fate, Faust willingly gives his soul over to eternal damnation.

Revisit the classic German legend of the Deal with the Devil. First penned in a small chapbook, published 1587, _Historia von D. Johann Fausten_ has since spawned many stories of the now infamous folklore. This spellbound collection includes both Christopher Marlowe's _The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus_ , and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe's _Faust._ Discover the hundreds of variations of theme in theatre, music, film, art and literature, that has immortalised the nefarious legend of the man who sold his soul.

Centuries of satanic storytelling is made accessible, side-by-side for the first time, in this modern Anthology — very much worth the deal.

* * *

 _"Pffft!"_

The ends of his lips spiked up before he dropped it back into a blank. Blood spattered over the clergyman's face, and he was amused. This human had spirit.

Enclosed within the crowd, shuffling, squeezing, rip-roaring, he was still. He watched the audience move around him, a mass of shouting men and weary women. A dangerous kind of passion lapped from their voices, an edge of fear-induced anger laced in their sweeping emotions. They swathed him in unrest, and he almost wanted to urge on with them. _Kill the lady._ But no. Humanity was always like this, always tell-tale lies and Chinese-whisper-like fear mongering. The village shuffled, shoving into the crowd, calling to make themselves heard over the many of them—cursing. No force in the world could convince them now—the lady could be guiltier than the damned devil she worked for. Amid the churning sea of people, he was still. His amber eyes were dimmed under a scruffy hood, blonde hair dirtied and matted and barely recognisable. A stranger no one would see in a place like this. Like this, he was invisible.

And he knew the one he was looking for would _be here._

 _"This is hardly a fair trial, is it? Everybody?"_

 _Ah._

Suddenly, he was pushed back, so he pushed forward, and the show in the centre bloomed into view. His insides stilled. The one in the middle, adorned in his favourite black attire, long-tailed bow and free-flowing blonde hair stood stern and proud. He watched the man masquerade for the crowd, taking his time to rip up paper and swing around axes and comfort innocent women. He tried to get closer, not caught up in their momentum but joining in the commotion.

From a couple rows behind, to the left, he glimpsed flashy scowls, heard the mocking voice. But he was still so close: he could practically feel the heat warm his face. The people's screams grew shrill, deafening him momentarily, forcing him to stand ground before he thought better of it. He jolted apart with the running people, mock-paralysed with them on the spot. A plant withered back into the grounds, more people screamed bloody murder and he—was he the only one who wanted to applaud? Purple seared into his mind, he couldn't forget that. Couldn't forget that heat. Then the show was over, the man disappeared with a flamboyant show of power. Leaving hundreds of people to fear his name. Thousands of people to fear his shadow. Generations to pass down just another one of his many disguises.

Yet he wasted his time to do this?

The stranger died away with the crowd.

And as time went on, things changed. In the 1500s, knowledge of the nobles had not yet passed out of existence. There were great clashes between powerful creatures, unexplainable creatures — things that made humans tell their children, beware black cats, beware the full moon. So they explained the unexplainable. They spun reality into stories they could pass down around a campfire. Gods and spirits and magical curses — the one once hailed as a god became the devil. The one once hailed a saint became a sinner. Contracts with nobles became deals with demons. But how wrong was that really, when those very same contracts set loose mutants — a reign of terror over the world?

* * *

Notes.

Working title was - Tao's Discovery

I would like to thank Laryna6 here for their A+++ world building skills. A couple of things in this fic, including Takeo's changing 'sniper's eyes,' and that the trio's memories only went back for a decade, are all their genius. I agree with most of their thoughts and then head canon them, and then they show up in fic. So pls tell me if I accidentally stole something, I have to credit.

(And also, I double checked and it ok~ Entrench, verb 3. to encroach; trespass; infringe; to entrench on the domain or rights of another.)

I admit I've never actually read 'Frankenstein' I just googled really hard. But I've littered a bit of Mary Shelley's book references in the fic. Remember the dying lady in Franken's dream (nightmare for two chapter)? In the book, Victor's mother dies from scarlet fever, and (if you look in shmoop notes~) this was one of the things that might have made him obsessed with creating life. In the chapter, she gets turned into a mutant. So yes, that was mum that crumbled in his dream, that Raizel saw. That particular man that he buried last in the grave was supposed to be (well I imagined him to be, though there's not much ref about it) Henry Clerval, his bff. And in this chapter, I named dropped Elizabeth Lavena, Victor's fiance. In the book the characters that Victor cared about most all die off. Elizabeth was supposed to go like everybody else, :( but then somehow, when I wrote this, she ended up living so? :) And one more thing: Victor went to uni at 'University of Ingolstadt,' so naturally, I made Franken a prof there.

I know Germany didn't exactly exist here, Prussia doesn't even exist here yet, I cleaved off **Duchy of Württemberg, South-east Germany,** from the German legend. This was where the story was set in _Historia von D. Johann Fausten._

Mary Shelley picked a super German name, especially since she was travelling around the Rhine and stuff when she started writing the book. ('Frankenstein' very literally means 'stone of the Franks.) And in the fic, very possibly, he might be descended from or related to the Franks or Frankish people: germanic nomads.

* * *

No chapter next week~ Will resume right after.

Thank you for all your support.


	12. Burn

**Disclaimer:** Noblesse belongs to Jeho Son, Kwangsu Lee and line webtoons. I have no affiliation with Noblesse.

Say hi to the Betas: Kaikouken (Nerdanel on AO3) and Argonautica.

* * *

 _Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England. Exhibit 457: The Letters - three poignant letters salvaged from abandoned post office records, written by the curious personality, 'F.' The content of the letters, especially the third, remain dubious to experts._

Master,

I believe I may now say that I might have come across another lead to your discovery. I have had much to contend with, and a good deal of uphill work to encounter, but I now hope that brighter prospects are dawning, and that I shall very soon be reunited with you in a state of elation.

I have gone already so far as to be able to read the now modernised hanyu scripts of China, and next week I thought I ought to relearn Korean and Japanese in its modern counterparts, as well. I have some thoughts, if agreeable to you, of taking chambers in one of the inns of the court here, in order to study the law: my inclinations have always run that way, to learn of the places I travel to and so as to not fall behind as the ages change.

I am left in a situation that may be felt, but not described. That I have become so dulled in my senses and intellect, that I have become so grossly sentimental to have chided myself into writing this letter as if you, my Master, could possibly receive it…

At length, by the best probabilities of the world, I will be able to reclaim my promise and return to your side. However far removed from your presence, presently, neither you nor myself will ever forget, that, now even as I've travelled abroad for so long, it is my bonden duty find you.

And now with my greatest wish, believe me, Master,

Your loyal and impatient servant,

F

P.S- Do not bother to return to sender. Just bin it. Bin it.

* * *

Master,

Although temporarily estranged from your company, I cannot refrain from hoping that you will enable me to realise some slender hope from a mere correspondence on your part. Some centuries have passed without the slightest indication of you reaching out to me, despite my knowing you breathe. Our bond—I can still feel it, exasperatingly so, and I

F

* * *

Master,

I am emboldened to lay open to you the present state of my being, as I'm aware of your worrisome disposition. I'm fine. Absolutely.

My Lord has always concerned himself over my use of Dark Spear, and I announce to you that I haven't had the need to employ them, for quite some while. Sixteen decades and counting. Might I remind you that this is a new record? The inflictions reflected in my sleep are no longer an agitation.

I still devote myself to finding you.

Yours, in every sense of the word,

Vladi—I mean, fake name, dear me. F.

PS Yes, I realise there is no address on this thing. Get rid of it.

* * *

 **Burn**

M-21 shifted in his room, fiercely eyeing his clock. The second the clock struck he bolted upright, out of the room so fast that his head dizzied after laying in the same spot for a while. He shook it slightly, making it worse.

"Guys?"

The sound of doors opening focused him again, and Tao patted a single hand on M-21's back before he passed him. They met up with Takeo and went to the living room. Timing was crucial here. Frankenstein was supposed to be working late today. Once Raizel-nim came back from school with Regis and Seira, and Frankenstein called home once to make sure nobody saw anything fishy, they waited half an hour. Exactly half an hour for Raizel not to get swamped by them…and then they'll swamp him.

Something wasn't right, all three of them knew it, and Regis had confirmed a couple nights before that — _yes, it had to be Dark Spear, who else has an aura that horri- I mean…flamboyant? —_ and Seira only sighed her acknowledgement. Secrets were never kept from them like this before. It was not like Frankenstein or Raizel owed them anything, it was probably the other way round, but the enhanced humans cared for them. After the hidden bunker room fiasco, they were honestly worried for the Boss.

But they weren't about to bring that up with Frankenstein. Despite what he'd like people to think, despite what he'd told the trio: _it's alright to give in to stress, it gets to us all sometimes; there's nothing to be shamed of. You can vent your energy and mess up the training room if you'd like. No, you idiot, no cost. Go. Shout. Don't be late for dinner._

But Frankenstein, he was still trying to pretend nothing could get to him when obviously, something had. Like a thousand tiny, little needle pricks finally culminated in his howling at the moon through a muzzle.

He didn't want to worry them, but it was scaring them.

M-21 rounded a corner to find Raizel-nim, Regis and Seira in their exact 4pm spots. (Another worry: _Boss let us off work? Early? He's having a meltdown, M-21!)_

They compared notes, and Tao wrote it up in a brainstorm:

• Boss skips dinner one night

• A strange guy disses my hairdo, shut up, Takeo

• Btw the above happened at like…four/five in the morning?

• Boss's Boss knocks me the hell out

• I don't get to say a thing to Boss

• The book!

• Regis and Seira swear they felt Dark Spear!

• I find the hip bunker room. Did you know Boss isn't just posing? Look at his degrees.

• Betcha he invented some of those degrees

• M-21 gets smashed

• Burn marks.

• Boss is making me sweat a lot, lately…

Conclusion: ask Boss's Boss.

M-21 waved the confusing clutter out of his head, and when he focused again, he was right in front of said Boss's Boss with Takeo and Tao.

"Sir?" he heard Takeo say. "We're sorry to intrude on your snack-time, but, could you spare us a moment?"

 _Hell._

M-21 cringed.

 _Why do you have to say that all…suspiciously? Why didn't we all just agree to let Tao ask?_

Raizel immediately faced them and nodded more than once. "Of course. Take a seat, Takeo, Tao, M-21."

They took seats opposite to Regis and Seira.

Tao looped his clasped hands over a leg. "So what's wrong with Boss?"

 _And that's why we agreed to let Takeo do the talking._

Raizel was taken aback for a moment, but his expression softened knowingly, and he put down all his food and drink. Regis and Seira did the same, Regis glaring daggers at Tao. It wasn't conventional behaviour for nobles to be so confrontational. Regis and Seira didn't try to pry about the reason they felt Dark Spear rip free the other night. Usually, if done the noble way, like Frankenstein and Raizel sometimes, then they'd have to wait a couple hundred years for Raizel to bring up the subject on his own.

But they were worried now.

Right now.

"What he means is," M-21 interjected, "Frankenstein…we don't mean to pry or anything but, he doesn't seem…"

"—himself," Takeo finished for him.

Tao straightened up, holding Raizel's gaze honestly. "He's not eating well. He never sleeps that well but he's not sleeping at all these days, he's moody and surly…er than usual…I want to ask you, Raizel-nim, did he _really_ forget he had a boarded-up room under the house?"

M-21 looked at Tao, actually impressed that he said it all straight.

Raizel blinked his eyes shut for a moment. When he opened them they were melancholic, but resolved. "Of course you would all notice it as well. Yes, Frankenstein is deeply bothered," he said gently.

The trio weren't alarmed, but Regis and Seira looked troubled now. What did 'deeply bothered,' mean? For someone as hard as stone and cunning like the Chairman? It occurred to them all that they'd never seen him at boiling point. Usually, Dark Spear was involved — but no, Frankenstein hadn't lashed out at the trio ever before.

Until a few days ago.

Raizel sat back into his seat, straight and dignified, ready to answer their questions without reservation. "Yes, Tao, Frankenstein genuinely did not have knowledge of that room from long ago."

"Oh," he uttered. He was glad that wasn't a lie, in the end.

"Because he had sealed his own memories of it."

 _What?_

"What do you mean?" M-21 quickly asked.

"That room," Raizel answered, taking his heavy gaze off of them for a moment, "was one of the bases he used to use in the old days."

 _Old days._ That meant, _historically old. More than historically old._

"He used it when he himself was still learning to enhance his abilities. And advance mankind for the better. It used to hold much of his vast knowledge. Like a library. He spent the longest time there out of all his hideouts." Raizel put his gaze upon them now, steady and piercing and grievous. "He was forced to destroy it when his enemies came hunting him."

"Hunting him?" Regis's eyes had widened into hard, red stones, something like disgust squirming up within him.

Raizel opened his mouth to speak, but looked like he thought better of it. He chose his words with heart, careful not to agitate them. "I realise no one has ever told you. How like Frankenstein. He tells you all of my past and my pains, but not his own." He trailed his crimson eyes over Regis, Seira, and the engrossed trio. "Right now, Frankenstein is a man of great power, in a time where humans cannot yet fathom beings like myself. Or like werewolves, or mutants. What do you think it was like for him, back then?"

The realisation poured over them like moonlight falling back into cloud. Leaving them cold and lightless.

"Frankenstein held great power even back then. He had an even greater mind, especially amongst the humans. He wanted to use his powers to help humans, to protect them." Raizel quirked up a lip for half a second. "At first, they hailed him like a saviour. Then as rumour spread and doubts began to form, he was shunned. They began to fear his power. They began to envy his knowledge. A few powerful, selfish humans…they stole away his home, his work and his own people."

Raizel paused, feeling the silence linger like mist. "He and the ones nearest to him were used by the humans. They later would call themselves the Union."

M-21, Takeo and Tao flinched. "Frankenstein was convinced that he would bring harm to all who neared him, so he led a solitary life," the words came easily to Raizel, as if he already knew this part so well. Like he could recite it from the back of his hand, only he wasn't looking. Raizel waited for them to speak, but when they didn't, he continued. "To protect those he could no longer go near and those who no longer trusted him, Frankenstein let his enemies tarnish his name. He embraced their taunts and stories and made a villain of himself."

The children were still.

"Because he felt he had a duty to mankind."

Raizel managed a wry smile. "The old days…he was young and reckless. And terribly guilty. He believes that…Frankenstein believes that the ultimate responsibility of the Union lies with him. I think he is ashamed of his past."

In trying to help humanity, he created its downfall. Suddenly, it was as if M-21 had floated to the top of the water's surface, breaking out of the murkiness into the clear, crisp truth. The pieces fell into place, and he understood why Frankenstein, the so-called mad scientist, let him stay in this house the minute he escaped from the Union. Why he was so willing to help and heal people like him. Why he always smiled behind that hard, toothy mask when they knew Dark Spear _hurt_. M-21 had long suspected, but now he knew Frankenstein's hatred of the Union was something more deep-seated than even his, Tao's and Takeo's combined. Something else hit him: M-21's memories went back perhaps a decade. Frankenstein's went back centuries.

How would that feel? To have to endure all that time with the Union's shadow behind your back?

"Why," M-21 asked, "why does he hate being called 'Professor?' "

Raizel reached his sight up to meet M-21's gaze. His lips drooped before he put on a small smile again.

"You could say, Frankenstein once had a child…"

* * *

"Are you ready?"

The high voice swept across the airy lab, scattering before it hit the far wall. Sharp click-clacks of high heels tipped across the room. "We're awaiting your orders, Zeroth Elder."

"Faust. I'm just Faust to you, dear," replied a sweet voice.

A noble and a human walked down the centre, arm in arm. Faust stopped before a machine.

"So?" came the Noble's voice. "How did the scouting go for you, in the end?" she asked.

"Disappointing," Faust sighed, releasing her arm to tap on a grid, "but I suppose it works in our favour in the end." He spun on his toes, watching the green-grey liquid flow from the holding capsule. "The Noblesse is even more in shambles than than I had first anticipated."

"Because it's been a long time and he's lost a lot of power. He won't be able to escape eternal sleep again."

"Hmm."

The Noble flicked her hair back. "So, should I call old man Ninth?"

"Yeah, why not," Faust shrugged. He sauntered over to the table, grabbing his black mask and straightening it out. With a quick tug, he pulled it secure over his face, running a finger down the line of red stitches.

"Once that thing's finished defrosting or whatnot, just send it out. We'll catch up later."

"Ok, Faust."

* * *

 _"You talked with the guy that Boss was attacked by on teacher-parent night?"_

Tao's incredulous voice made a wince spread like split water as the words left him. "Oh my god. That's why you didn't want me to….oh."

"I am sorry, Tao."

"Well…that's…hn." When he realised how passive aggressive that had sounded, Tao piped up again, "No, Raizel-nim, I mean, it's ok. Nobody got hurt." _Except Frankenstein._

Tao took a small gulp.

Something felt itchy and wrong in his fingers, but he didn't know what. It wasn't right of him to go digging into that underground room — hell — he'd even abandoned his job to do it. The Boss had ordered him to look over security footage. The day after he and the school was basically attacked. Tao felt like a dick.

"But I want you to know, nothing that has happened is any of your fault," Raizel said, and Tao jerked up. He wasn't looking, but somehow, he knew this part was probably directed at him. "Just like my past, Frankenstein has enemies. He wants to keep this from you all. And myself, because he…"

Raizel frowned sulkily, and M-21 felt all of a sudden very unsettled.

"He is a fool."

M-2's eyes widened. He looked around. The household exchanged rather impressed glances at each other.

Raizel reached for his tea and sipped. "He is a fool to try and bear all of this by himself."

"Raizel-nim." It was Seira who had spoken. Her red eyes widened after a millisecond, startling Regis beside her.

"Seira?" Regis uttered.

Raizel hurriedly put down his tea, spilling it over the saucer.

Seira stood. "Don't you feel it, Regis? Under the house. The Chairman is not at the school. He's under the house."

M-21, Takeo and Tao could hardly understand when Raizel rushed from his seat, consumed by something striking and odd, leaving them without a word. Seira trailed behind him, and the rest of the household could only blink at each other as they followed to the depths of the labs.

* * *

Dark Spear's fire weren't like ordinary flames. The way blue flames were hotter, far hotter than orange flames, Dark Spear's was beyond Mother Nature. Something necromantic and sick, it flickered in a purple mirage when the flames itself were black — as if those very flames were bought back from the dead long after they'd burnt out, and Dark Spear's fire was old and ancient. As old and ancient as its master. But they came back twice as hungry. Twice as desperate and thirsty for whatever may lie in its path to whatever arbitrary satisfaction could be found in the fat and tissue of humans, in the fur and claw of creatures or rubble and wood of villages, of stone towers, of grassy fields.

And to all those consumed, they knew nothing could indulge Dark Spear enough. Because they never felt alive enough, hanging between delusions, hanging between worlds and dark realms they could see but never touch. They knew they were merely ants caught in the rapids, floating insignificantly in its vastness. Ordinary flames couldn't ignite leaves or flowers, wet things, but Dark Spear's flames could. They could suck the life out of them like parasites. There was a clawing gluttony and endless, thoughtless greed; bottomless unlike canyons and borderless unlike continents, Dark Spear's flames didn't leave slag or ashes. Smoke didn't rise when they tasted their prey. Dark Spear may play with its food, but it never wasted one tiny, little drop.

They were too selfish for that.

Normal flames made sounds, they could crackle; but purple flames, they _cackled_. They _jingled._ They laughed as they ate, and ate and they laughed, and purple flames were as abnormal as the doubts running through his veins, as abnormal as the emotions surging in his brain. _Dark Spear couldn't have him?_ No, that phrase was wrong. Dark Spear would eat Frankenstein, and Frankenstein knew this. _I'm yours?_ He couldn't be Raizel's forever. Because this was the end that had always been in sight.

The bunker room was engulfed in the fire that hadn't finished the job.

And he pondered to himself, the master of his own rebellion, could anyone else ever hear them when they were so, damned loud?

"What the hell is happening?!" Tao's voice funnelled from the ends of the blackened tunnel.

"No, don't tell me—"

They ran down the tunnel, twisting at the last moment to enter left in top speed. No one was amongst the ruins of scrolls and books and shattered-frame documents. It was Seira who first burst though the hingeless doorway on the right. "Chairman?"

M-21, Tao, Takeo and Regis fanned out behind her, all eyes wide and staring and taking in the burning room in different degrees of disbelief. Both rooms were flaming, but Frankenstein…

Why was he watching an empty room burn?

"Apologies for disturbing you, Miss Seira," came Frankenstein's curt voice. He was standing in the middle of the room, back extremely straight with both hands at his side.

Surrounded by his own fire.

"Boss?!" Takeo called. "Boss! Get out of there!" When Frankenstein didn't answer, Takeo walked over the flames — walked straight into the ring of it-

"DON'T!" Frankenstein flung two hands in his direction, immediately suffocating the fire at his feet. Takeo walked on, hardly bothered.

"Frankenstein," he said, meeting him in the middle, "stop this."

"Don't go near the fire, Takeo," Frankenstein stated, "you _will_ get burnt."

"I'm not the one that's playing with fire," Takeo muttered.

Tao clenched his fist so hard that Regis and M-21 could hear it.

"Frankenstein, you don't have to be strong all the time."

In the brink of the moment, Dark Spear's fire pounced. Flames swathed up the walls, devouring the ceiling until Takeo and Frankenstein were in the centre of an inferno.

 _"Hnngh…"_

Frankenstein broke out of his stoic demeanour and wobbled into a hunch. It was as if he didn't mean to make the flames close Takeo from the other children, but it did, and he was trapped here with him.

 _"TAKEO!"_

 _"FRANKENSTEIN?!"_

 _"Chairman!"_ The distinctive roll of aura coursed through the air, and Raizel motioned a hand up just in time to stop Seira from drawing her soul weapon.

"Allow me."

Frankenstein flinched to see Raizel.

Raizel lifted his right arm. It took a mere fraction of a second for recognition to set in Frankenstein's eyes. It took less for him to lurch as Raizel's hand began to gather a glowing red. Frankenstein's back was turned on them all, but they saw him stab his hands into the fire. Slowly, resolutely, he dragged his outstretched arms from before him to behind him, like a conductor silencing an orchestra.

They were all thrown into darkness.

"So. Ominous."

Shuffling noises sounded.

"Shut up, Tao."

"Ouch! That's my foot."

A shove.

"Honestly, how inelegant of you…"

"Chairman?"

Pair of red eyes were illuminated before the tiny glow in Seira's hands blossomed over them, showing everyone the full damage of the room.

"Frankenstein? Are you alright?" M-21's voice was strained.

Takeo adjusted his sniper's eyes, half-using night vision over Seira's light. "There are safer ways to get rid of this place, you know. You could have asked us to help. We'd have helped. No questions asked."

Frankenstein looked dismal. He looked as if he was going speak, but his jaw tightened against it. Frankenstein slowly turned to the doorway. No words were exchanged. The children broke apart, giving way for him to see Raizel. But he didn't look at him. Blue eyes remained modestly downcast.

"Please," Raizel implored to the children, "would you mind checking the house? I may have left the kettle on."

"…Ok."

"Yes, sir."

"Yes."

Seira threw down her aura as she turned to leave. The room stayed lit for the house owner and his Master. Raizel finally stepped into the room, ignoring where the fire had ravaged only a short moment ago. Scorch marks sizzled under his footsteps, blinking in his wake.

"What were you doing?"

"I…I wanted to leave no trace of this place."

"Why?"

"…"

No answer.

"Did you think I wouldn't feel you lifting your seal from under your labs?"

Frankenstein's brows trembled at Raizel's words. "No. I knew you would feel it."

"Then why?"

Blonde hair shifted. "I am ready to face the consequences of my actions. I will accept any punishment you see fit. I lifted my seal for better control of my flames," Frankenstein said — recited.

Raizel was equally monotonous. "That did not look like control to me, Frankenstein."

"…Sorry."

Frankenstein hardened his heart. He chose this. He wasn't going to ask for forgiveness.

"I know your battle with Faust did not go in your favour, but this is not like you."

He shifted uncomfortably, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Did Faust—" Raizel stopped.

Frankenstein realised his slip a second before he did. Just barely. He opened his eyes. His mouth dropped open, dumbfounded.

"You went after him?" he whispered.

Raizel shook his head once. "I did not. He felt strange, Frankenstein, that man is not—"

"He came to you?"

They lapsed into silence again.

That night, Raizel was at the house the entire time. Frankenstein had walked himself back. He didn't need to connect the dots before a nauseous feeling flooded his insides, a phantom bitterness slick on the root of his tongue.

Neither one wanted to talk about this. Neither one wanted to think too deeply about it. Had Raizel been keeping secrets? A myriad of scenarios began to spin and crumble in his head — Raizel meeting Faust. Raizel staying in that office a minute longer than he did. Raizel deflecting Faust's aura. Raizel risking his numbered days on earth to put down yet another one of Frankenstein's blunders. _Oh so many_ blunders. Yet with Raizel's silence, Frankenstein knew that Faust had walked free.

That was not like Raizel. Faust was alive. Just what had happened in the hours he was out?

Raizel stepped closer, shaking free of Faust. "Why did you preserve this place, and then seal your memories of it…only to try and destroy it again, in this age?"

His words lingered in the hot air between them. A dry hesitation from Frankenstein. Raizel questioned him.

"Tell me."

"I can't."

"Tell me."

"I just can't."

"Tell me your answer, Frankenstein."

"Please…no."

Raizel drew in a long, tired breath. "I order you, Frankenstein, to tell me why."

Frankenstein snapped up his eyes, looking fearfully at him.

"…No."

Raizel's red eyes shuttered closed for a moment. When they opened again, they were despondent. The gravity of such a small gesture — burning a room — showed its weight. "Are you trying to force me to compel you? Is that what you wish?"

"I can't force you to do anything," Frankenstein replied immediately. A muscle twitched. He knew that was a lie. He'd almost forced Raizel to spend a drop of his precious life force, quashing some dark flames. Frankenstein's hands were clenched numb, the wounds on them still healing. He could almost hear the sound of skin mending. He concentrated on the faint pull and itch of slugging ligaments, skin tissue. Something he knew well; it was almost calming.

Frankenstein gathered his courage. "I want to ask something of you."

Raizel didn't change his expression. "What do you need?"

"If I can't get rid of this place, I want to you seal my memories of it. I can't do it myself because the moment I saw this room, I remembered everything."

Raizel frowned.

"Please."

"I deny your request," he said simply. "You will tell me the reason you wish to forget and then, I may consider your proposal."

Frankenstein winced, and then quickly blanked his face again. A spark pricked from his knuckles. He discretely moved his hands behind his back.

"Are you disobeying me, or is Dark Spear-"

 _"Can't you do this favour for me?"_

Frankenstein's voice wavered. He looked surprised at the weakness in his voice, and he frowned, biting back on an urge or adrenaline or Dark Spear, or all of them at once.

"Just…can't you just read my mind, and then seal the memory when you see fit?"

Raizel looked past him. He traced the walls of the empty room, seeing the surface of the place crumble and flutter. "No," he said with a little thought, "I have ordered you to tell me."

Frankenstein scrunched up as Raizel neared him again, stilling with a resignation when he lifted a hand. "But I revoke that order now."

Frankenstein didn't understand.

Raizel moved gingerly, taking care that Frankenstein could see him move. He clasped his hand onto Frankenstein's shoulder. A short intake of breath sounded. Confused blue eyes stared down into calm reds.

"What is wrong, Frankenstein?" Raizel whispered.

Raizel pushed the gates of their bond open. Concern flooded to him, and Frankenstein was adrift amid Raizel's fondness and care, nothing held back. But it only made Frankenstein guilty, guiltier than before and before he understood what his body was doing, what he was reflexively trying to do, he shoved Raizel's hand off as if it burnt.

 _"Nothing's—"_

Only, the only one who could burn him was he, himself.

 _"BEEN RIGHT!"_

A whimper escaped from Frankenstein, and he pushed past Raizel's shoulder, dragging past him. He got to the doorway before all his senses screeched at him at once— _this felt so wrong, yet so brewing to happen._

* * *

Notes

Yep, sorry for the delay. I had my break but then in a woeful turn of events, my laptop got screwed up and I had to go get it fixed. But it's ok now.

As you can see, this is where Shit Goes Down~

I did not fully write the letters from the beginning of the chapter - they were edited versions of letters from this book that I bought, which was a collection of victorian style letters. I was writing this fic, saw this book lying around and was like - hey. Gotta use that! It's - The Gentleman's letter writer, household manuals, published in Great Britain: Old House books and maps, 2012. (did I just cite something for fanfic? Eh. People wrote so fancy back then it's amazing.)

Arrghh I need to start answering people!

Laryna6 - Thank you! Hell yea, Faust is pretty obsessive, isn't he? Oh phew, I'm glad you liked tao's sonar abilities because I was like...is finding out this way a little too on the nose? XD I have to admit I did not plan for the 'broken things' to match up to the 'madness' theme, but I'm glad you saw that because when I read it I was like, :O Oh yeah! Took me forever to think up that title, but I was really happy with that one. 'Non-secretly-evil' is exactly what that was, thank. M-21 will be M-21. In the end, something's wrong and he just wants to know what. Exactly - Tao used 'Prof' because it's shouldn't it be something to be proud of? And Rai :/

Elims - You will have to keep reading to find out ;D But I've put a few hints throughout this one so its quite possible to figure out wtf Faust is.

Kaikouken - You ARE awesome and I please know that I appreciate you a lot. Um, hopefully everything will be sufficiently explained later on...but sigh* it's going to take a while. Glad everybody seems to know what this room is/ was, because I was like - who the heck would remember if it was one on the left or right? I guess it's cos Franken knows his life right now is really precious and he doesn't want to start stuff (especially if it's Rai!) - why ruin things when it's going to well? But then he gets that push from Faust - some whispers from Dark Spear - and he's really trying to keep it all in. Franken, you have emotional needs too! But, you know all this XD

And XxDarkBeautyxX, Mugiwara Otome, Argonautica and everyone else - thanks for reading~

\- earl


	13. Eight Hundred and Twenty

Disclaimer: This is fanfic guys, it has no correlation to Noblesse creators Jeho Son and Kwangsu Lee.

Please beware of dark themes :O

As always, big thanks to the betas Kaikouken and Argonautica. Seriously, thank you for dealing with all this typed-up melodrama.

* * *

 **Unspecified time**

 **1000+ years ago,**

 **Lukedonia.**

Lilies or Tulips?

"So lilies, or tulips?"

Raizel looked up from the sill. Colour bombarded his eyes, and he almost didn't know which display of flowers, spread all over the room, he should choose to look at first.

"Take your time."

Raizel's eyes flickered back to Frankenstein, standing in the middle, surrounded by the flowers he'd grown. It was like a garden had spilled into the sunny room, hues running rampant and overgrown. Yet, when his eyes lingered over the entire spectrum of the rainbow, Raizel saw that they were all so prim and just, cut perfectly without a saggy leaf out of place.

"I don't mind."

"No, Master," came Frankenstein's voice, slightly exasperated, "You have to choose. Please take your time."

"I like them all."

 _"_ _Master…"_ He sighed lightly, and Raizel looked apologetic. He really did like them all. The cupped petals of the tulips, the curling white lilies, and the daisies and blossoms and wide spreading camellias. They all seemed to glow and flaunt, as if Frankenstein beckoned them to open today only — no — _especially_ for him. Knowing Frankenstein, he honestly wondered for a moment if he could.

"I already helped your options down to two. Lilies or tulips?" Frankenstein clasped a vase of them — lilies, or tulips — Raizel didn't know which was which. He looked questioningly at Frankenstein.

Frankenstein quickly set the vase down, pointing. "These ones, with the petals cupped over like a bulb, are tulips, and these," he motioned over to another vase, "with the longer, thinner petals, and these — these are called anthers — are lilies." He looked back to him, as if that would help him come to a decision.

"Do you like them?"

"Yes."

"…You don't like them."

"I do, Frankenstein." Raizel stepped away from the window, closer to him. "I'm just….overwhelmed."

Frankenstein's brows lifted, but then he smiled — like the hundred flowers did, another face beaming. "Honestly, it's not alchemy, or anything…I just need to know your tastes better to redecorate the house."

Raizel shifted. A deep concentration fell over his face, and he contended within himself. _Lilies or tulips…?_

"They have meanings in the human world, too," Frankenstein added, shuffling another collection. Raizel wavered. "Flowers have meanings? For humans?"

"Some of them, yes." He came forward, bringing one of the trolleys up behind him. Vases were filled to the brim with flowers of every style, and Frankenstein fluttered a gloved hand over them, picking a particular couple out.

He presented a flower with five, distinct petals, two upper ones overlapping three bottom ones, and symmetrical down the middle. "This is an orchid." Raizel took it in his hands, bringing the petals up close. They looked gorgeous and healthy.

"They mean different things to different human cultures, and regions, of course," Frankenstein commented, "but this is a white orchid. They are mostly known for innocence, and elegance."

Raizel nodded slowly, handing it back to him as if he wanted for him to have this one. "I like them. The colour is beautiful."

That made Frankenstein's eyes widen. "Oh. White." Something flashed behind his eyes, and Raizel knew he was filing away the information. "Alright, let me create another arrangement then."

He looked determinedly down at the flowers. "How about this one? Light red carnations." Flowers with petals that bunched into one another were presented before Raizel. "It means admiration," Frankenstein offered.

"It seems so…fluffy."

"Does it?" Frankenstein smiled, almost childlike. "Should I add it to your arrangement?"

"Yes."

He placed it next to the orchids. When Frankenstein saw Raizel's eyes slip to the little yellow petals towering over the others, he quickly retrieved it. "Sun flowers. Sun flowers represent loyalty." He held it out to Raizel, who took it with reverent hands.

"It's…so big."

"Is it to your liking?"

"—Yes."

Sunflowers were unorthodox amongst a collection of smaller, perkier flowers, but Frankenstein added it anyway. A shred of purple snapped from his fingers, and he chopped the sunflower stalks down to size.

"Less large, but plentiful — lavenders," smiled Frankenstein. "Virtue," the smell of those poured over to Raizel, "and devotion."

Raizel's eyes furrowed, but not sternly.

Frankenstein opened his mouth. "…Is the smell too—"

"No, no." Raizel bought the flowers closer. "Yes, it may be a little… _little_ overbearing, but its fragrance is still wonderful." Raizel regarded Frankenstein, and realised he was waiting for an answer. "Please add them."

"Alright."

Frankenstein tapped a finger over his mouth, thinking. "Peonies," he piped up, satisfied. "Peonies—symbolising honour."

Raizel nodded. Now he peered into the flowers, eyes twinkling. "What is that colour?"

"That? That's orange, Master. Chrysanthemums are bright things—they stand for cheerfulness."

"They certainly look cheerful to me."

Frankenstein stifled an obvious grin. The Master honestly looked so cheerful. His aura was bright, brighter and happier than any of these flowers here.

"The lilies and tulips…" Raizel muttered. He seemed bashful. "I like them both a lot. Which do you prefer?"

"Which do _you_ prefer? I have sympathy lilies, and yellow lilies — happiness," Frankenstein bent down, retrieving another, "luck tulips, royalty tulips, and beauty tulips." He spoke fast, but it was making sense to Raizel.

Then Frankenstein turned to him intently. "The colour white, for tulips," he said, "means forgiveness."

"You choose for this arrangement."

"…I know you've given me free reign of redecorating, Master, but I need some of your input. Flowers are different for everyone's tastes."

"I'll just have yours."

"…"

Frankenstein stepped over, and his aura flushed. Raizel shifted to face him squarely, consternation falling over every line in his face, rapt attention siphoning off every part of his body. Making Frankenstein feel guilty. He pressed a white tulip into Raizel's palms, stepped back, and trailed his eyes to the floor. He kept them there.

"…You do not bother me, Frankenstein."

"How could I not bother you when I'm so — _noisy_ all night?"

"You do not need to ask forgiveness for that."

Frankenstein rolled his eyes at the floor, annoyed—as if he knew this was going to happen but here it was, happening. Raizel brightened suddenly, and went to hover over the flowers. He sifted his hands through the colourful bundles, making another mismatched, ragtag arrangement.

"Red carnation. White orchid. Peony, lavender…"

He paused for a moment, eyeing Frankenstein's baffled expression. "Which tulips represent beauty?"

Frankenstein blinked at him, "Pardon?"

"You said, 'beauty tulips.' "

"The variegated ones," he answered, then frowned slightly. "I mean — that means the ones with more than one colour."

Raizel bent and chose a white tulip, interlaced with pink streaks upon each cupped petal. He held it all out to Frankenstein.

"…For _me?"_

"You are admirable, virtuous, honourable…more loyal than I deserve," he spoke, an air of 'matter-of-fact-ness' in his voice. "Your soul is like this flower."

"…"

"It is beautiful." Raizel's brows creased a little. "You will need to try harder to put me off with your noise."

If he wasn't so embarrassed, Frankenstein could have burst out laughing. _Did he just…make a joke?_ He sighed nervously, taking the flowers from him with strange, tingling hands — as if those shaky things weren't really his own hands.

"Those…I grew those flowers to give over to you, _not me,"_ he said, rather flatly.

There was a long pause. Raizel finally retaliated. "You gave them to me. Now, they're mine to do what I will of them. I want to give them to you."

 _"Oh my gosh it doesn't work like that."_ Frankenstein tilted his head back, mock-defeated. Then he straightened and bowed, those flowers clasped dearer in his hands than all the others.

"Let me take you down to the greenhouse," he said, peeking up again, "I have more variety there. _Roses,_ you'll enjoy the roses, Master. They're not all open yet so I didn't bring them up, but what is there…you'll like roses."

If he bought this many up into the room, how many were there in the green house?

Raizel nodded, also slightly dazed.

* * *

 ** _Who are you so angry at?_**

* * *

 **Eight Hundred and Twenty**

The light simmered out, and Raizel and Frankenstein stood awkwardly apart in the elevator ride up, walked like strangers to the living room. They glowered at each other, each gripped in a foreign kind of dread, waiting as one of them tried to string together the right words.

Nothing was right.

They were like that for a long time. Cold teacups that no one had bothered to clear up, was still spread upon the tables. But it didn't register, didn't irk him — no amount of mess could compare to Frankenstein's mind right now. He peered up. Perhaps he had just enough strung-up words to say. Frankenstein finally tilted his head as high as he could.

"Permission to speak, Master."

Raizel blinked, stopping a frown. That wasn't what he wanted for Frankenstein to say. But nevertheless, Raizel subsided. "I grant you permission. Speak, Frankenstein. Tell me _everything."_

Frankenstein opened his mouth, and when the words came spilling out, he couldn't stop them. "The day you found me in that office again. What did you think I was doing, when I said I searched for you?" he said, slowly. "I meant what I said. I scoured this entire planet. And when I upturned every rock and still couldn't find you, I started over. And over. And over."

Frankenstein inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again looking at the floor, and then exhaled once more to the ceiling. His eyes trailed to Raizel's crimson pools. With a last swallow of reason, a last shrug of the moment, he willed himself not to look away.

"When you found me — everything just became right again and I was happy. But maybe the initial euphoria wore off. Maybe I thought too hard, or too long, and just can't keep my mouth shut anymore. Master, the time I spent searching for you was more than the time I spent with you." Frankenstein's hands were clenching, fists furling and unfurling in frenzy, or annoyance, and he almost didn't know how to move in that strange, tense body.

 _"Why did you leave me?"_ he said, quietly.

Raizel's entire being seized up. Frankenstein's eyes were locked onto him, unmoving, unblinking, and they cut.

"Why did you — why did you have to leave me? Why did you condemn me to that _living hell_ you thanked me from pulling you out of? Something happened to you back then and, _and-and_ — you left me, standing in your mansion, holding a godforsaken cup of _tea._ Why didn't you call for me?"

A feeling, tense and hot like exhaustion, rose up within him. Frankenstein could almost see that kind Florentine innkeeper sweep away his sedation again, his glass shards and spilt gin, pitying him from afar. He had what he wanted now, Raizel was standing ten feet right in front of him, and Frankenstein spewed out everything he didn't have the guts to say in that cathedral.

"I gave you my blood! Why didn't you summon me? Why didn't you command me? That's what I'm for — isn't it?! That's what I've pledged myself to you for — why did you not just let me fight for you?! I — you could have told me to peel my skin for you and I would have done it! I would have _died_ for you."

Frankenstein's breathing grew faster and faster, his heartbeat thumped harder and harder, and when he let himself go, forgot his place for a moment, he was shouting at Raizel.

"No! If I'm a burden, if I'm not worthy, then dismiss me! You have that right! I dare not linger if you don't will it! But you don't get to disappear without a note for eight hundred and _twenty years_ — and then come back and act like nothing ever happened! You don't get to do that to me! You don't get to— _how could you do that to me?!"_

His hands spasmed up, covering his mouth. _"Keugh-"_

He muffled the sobs escaping. Raizel stood there, jaw tight, motionless and looking emotionless — but inside, he was distraught. Frankenstein straightened up a little, throwing his hands down and head up as he stared Raizel straight in the eyes again. He didn't shout.

"All those years ago. Our contract — I gave you my soul, so I could stay by your side."

It all fell over Frankenstein like a sickness, dulling his mind, his intellect and precious logic until all that was left was to react. The rawest, most immediate expressions passed over his face in moments, and he didn't know which one to push back first. He was lost to himself.

"Do you have any idea…how many times I contemplated feeding myself to Dark Spear? How many times I lampooned with my enemies, hoping they were strong enough to kill me? Do you know why I ended up living this _long_ at all? I searched, I waited, for 820 years. 820 years. 820…"

He fell apart. Frankenstein collapsed to the floor, throwing his head forward into his hands. The ground became wet with tears — _plick, plick, plick,_ and he dug his nails into his skin.

"820…ye _ars_ …. _820_ …year _s_ … _82_ 0, 820 _years_ …"

Frankenstein held himself there, muttering between whimpers, droning under his breath until there wasn't any left. The tears came cascading now, and he was grovelling at the floor, his blonde hair draping over the tiles — unable to hold onto the last semblance of calm he'd kept up for centuries. He scolded himself over letting emotions rule his actions, but now— _oh lord_ — the pain and frustration, the almost-hate and jealous longing possessed him like Dark Spear did: eating one more soul.

" 820… _820_ …years… _8—_ "

Every thought that kept him ticking for those lonely centuries came sweeping back in one pang of revelation. He let out a yell. His voice reverberated throughout the house — like the thunder in the distance, or the storm across the horizon, had finally, incredulously, caught up.

The scream that came from him, wasn't fully human.

* * *

A shockwave welled out from Frankenstein, cracking the floor tiles beneath him into a hundred minuscule ravines, throwing back all the suburban furniture, knocking off the pictures on the walls. He was too consumed by the influx of feelings — things he'd suppressed too long after their reunion, to even register Raizel's own flow of power quelling his. A red aura crept up the walls, enveloping the house under his protection, and Frankenstein's rage wouldn't break apart the walls, his distress wouldn't be heard by any other.

His quarrel was with him, and if Frankenstein wished to settle this—if his grief let Dark Spear rampage—he'd answer to him. That was what he deserved. He owed him so much. Raizel could feel the uneasiness in his soul, the tentative air in his voice since he returned — but he didn't contemplate how deep his wounds stretched. He didn't want to worry him, talking of painful things. He didn't want to worry him. He didn't want to worry him.

He was nothing but a worry to him.

Raizel had hurt him so bad. Frankenstein was under his wing, his responsibility, and all this time they'd reunited — how dare Raizel? How dare he forget the millennia _he_ spent in solitude? Alone and lonely, wasting away in his mansion. The battlefield in his mind was only moments away upon his awakening. But for Frankenstein, _oh, Frankenstein._ It was lifetimes away. He was human. And he still welcomed him back, kneeling at his sudden return, pledging his allegiance without question. Like nothing ever happened. Like he didn't essentially abandon him for centuries. Dooming him to the hell he endured for so long.

 _So, so long._

* * *

Frankenstein's sobs echoed into raspy breaths, something of an attempt to quell himself as he wept like a damned schoolchild. That, he only knew too well. Dark Spear fought their way up to lap at his mind, and he had to cage them away, shake off the sparks flickering at his fingertips.

 ** _Fffrankenstein? Frankensstein, let us help, let us quench your lust for blood. Noble blood. Look what he's done to you._**

Black flames lurched forward within him.

 ** _L_ _ook how he's hurt you, Professor…summon us to you, we will come to your aid._**

The mass of blackness tangled in his mind, scraping forward and slithering between his disordered thoughts. He balked.

 ** _Summon us, Professor…Frankensstein…we will answer_** ** _your call._ **

Frankenstein gasped for breath, wrenching his consciousness away from the bars.

 ** _We will always answer! Professsor!_**

He slammed all the doors, dizzying himself. His anger fed out through deathly grit teeth. " _Why…must you all always…do this…when I'm trying to speak with my Master?!"_ he called out, exasperated.

 _"Nghh!"_

 ** _Your…call…Professor…Frankensstein…_**

He smelled the pinpricks of blood long before he felt them. Blood trickled from where Frankenstein had clamped his nails hard into his forehead, and it trailed down his broken face, merging into his tears. The sounds of his breathing filled the torn-up room.

Raizel only regarded him, crimson eyes watching morosely. Dark Spear was subsiding, and his call in his mind was not needed. Everything Frankenstein felt, he felt. He wanted to let go, break apart like Frankenstein was; but if he did, Frankenstein would have to feel Raizel's collapse pile on top of his. He couldn't do that to him. He had to stay composed.

Frankenstein's sadness enshrouded him in a haze, and he couldn't control it, couldn't control his thoughts projecting onto Raizel _and_ keep Dark Spear at bay.

* * *

"Master?" Frankenstein called, going up to Raizel with a tray of tea. His eyes turned up, glancing from Raizel's reflection to his own when he didn't answer. He was in deep thought. Frankenstein didn't mind. "It seems that Muzaka has left much earlier than I expected," he said, a little regrettably. Why hadn't the werewolf stayed longer? Raizel needed the fresh air. Frankenstein noted it down, planning to talk to Muzaka later. He wandered away, daintily placing the tray on the table.

" _Oh._ And Roctis came by while you were away. He bought news: the humans' war has stretched to the northern mountains."

Frankenstein busied himself with the tea set, stirring the perfectly infused blend in small circles as he dropped in the sugar. He watched it swirl and dissolve, satisfied with fragrant steam that billowed up. _Perfect._

"To think that he'd come by concerned with something _human-related_ …" Frankenstein started.

Wind gusted by his back. The velvet curtains began to flutter.

"Hnn?"

Frankenstein turned, glasses glinting as he was met with the opened window. Light poured into the room, casting crisscrossing shadows of the frame onto the floor. Raizel was not there.

"Master?"

Frankenstein walked over, balancing the cup and saucer in his hand. He scanned the area. Raizel was nowhere to be seen. It was unusual — he had left through the window. Raizel's aura was completely erased from him. Where did he go? Perhaps to see Muzaka, he guessed. His guesses were usually right. Frankenstein placed a hand onto the sill, looking out into the distance. Only wind struck his face, blowing back his hair and blowing the red, velvety curtains to flap violently beside him. That was unlike Raizel, to disappear so suddenly. He put down the tea, ready to jump out after him.

But if Raizel had wanted for him to follow, he would have asked it of him. Definitely. If he wanted him to know where he was going, he would have told him. Surely. Frankenstein went back to the table, deciding to respect Raizel's strange actions.

How he regretted that decision.

* * *

The moments drew to minutes, and finally, gradually, Frankenstein swallowed, hastily wiping away his tears. His blood. He withdrew his spilled power, trying to stuff the traitorous aura all back beneath his skin. He locked away the countless dark souls within him. He shifted into a proper kneel. Two still-shaking hands clutched at his knees before they limply dropped to the floor. He couldn't have created more of a bloody mess. Frankenstein dipped his head.

He was pathetic. He was pitiful. _Finished?_ Finished. Did he feel better? Now that he had gone ahead and _done it._

 _Hell-fucking-no._

He was disgusting. He was revolting. A bug not even fit for his life to be taken by the Noblesse.

Frankenstein felt repulsive.

He opened his mouth, slowly raising his eyes until he reached Raizel's centre. And he held it there, unworthy of his sight. He was scum.

"Mm-" Frankenstein coughed once, twice, wincing at his own croaking voice. "Master… _Master_ …I—" He swallowed, emphasising his words in broken breaths. " _I'm - so - very, sincerely sorry, Master_."

He couldn't bear for Raizel to see him right now.

He was a disgrace.

"Frankenstein."

"I… _please_ …"

"What should I do?"

"Please just—"

"How can I—"

 _"—excuse me."_

Raizel tensed up further, surprise lighting up his crimson eyes.

"Just…let me leave…" He struggled against himself. _"P-lease…"_

The Noblesse just stood there, alienated from everything he loved and wanted: the house, the world, Frankenstein. He was despondent, swallowed whole by melancholy, and he couldn't think clearly. Frankenstein's pain was too fresh and hurting. He didn't know how to help him.

He didn't know what to do.

 _"…As you wish."_

Raizel turned his head, averting his eyes from Frankenstein.

"BOSS?!"

A voice burst into the open, and Tao and Takeo sprang forward, splintering furniture out of the way in their urgency. "What the—" The enhanced humans froze on the spot, their blood freezing in their veins. M-21, Regis and Seira came running a second behind them. Fright was plastered onto Regis's face, and he was going to call out. Seira gripped his shoulder, quashing him. M-21 spoke up.

"What the—who did this? Frankenstein? Frankenstein are you ok? Sir? Who—"

 _"Shut up—"_ Takeo jabbed M-21, hard.

Raizel just stood there, bordered by upturned chairs, spilt tea, and looking far, far away from them all. Frankenstein was on his knees before him, the rips in his skin he'd dug out still knitting, and his tears still wet on his face. It was like the children had walked in on centre stage, disrupting the climax of a long-winded falling-out. Frankenstein hid his face under his hair. He had nothing to say.

The entire household in one room, and the quiet was unbearable. Everything was surreal. It was as if they all traversed into on one of Frankenstein's vivid dreams, where impossible things, like his Master leaving him for eight centuries, or him crying out loud when his emotions gave out, were nothing out of the ordinary. But the things that haunted him now: his own disappearance, his own spent life-force, Raizel couldn't brush away with a mere wave of his hand. Dark Spear didn't cause any of this. Raizel did.

"This is between them." Takeo whispered.

Suddenly, Frankenstein lifted himself off the floor, shaking acutely, and wiped an arm over his tears. He moved weakly, walking over the ruined tiles to the door: _clack…clack…clack…_

The household didn't move, not knowing what to do. Regis and M-21 squirmed in their shoes. Tao and Takeo were rooted to the floor. Seira clasped a hand over her mouth and balked. With one unchecked pull, Frankenstein wrenched the door off its hinges. He eyed it vacantly as the bolts clattered to the floor.

Like glass shards in the sixteenth century.

"…Excuse me, My Lord."

He left.

"Raizel-nim!" Takeo went towards him, the Noble children following suit. Tao and M-21 trailed after them in a stupor.

"What…what just _happened?_ " Tao piped up, a real fear in his quiet voice.

"Are you alright?" Regis could hardly contain his concern. "Raizel-nim?"

Raizel's eyes were still fixed to the ground, and when the warmth of a hand was laid upon his shoulder, he startled alive again.

"My apologies, Sir…but I thought…I thought this might be…calming?" It was Takeo. He held his hand there, stiff, yet genuine.

Raizel trailed his red eyes over them. "I am fine."

"And Frankenstein?"

"Please…" They were breathless. "Go after him. Look after him right now. He _needs_ it."

"…Alright." M-21 answered. "Alright. Tao, Takeo and I will go after Frankenstein, Regis and Seira will stay here with Sir."

"No." His voice was low, but it drew their attention like fire all the same. "I will be fine. All of you must go. Help Frankenstein, please."

 _From what?_ Regis thought, but turned his back nonetheless. "Yes, Sir." The household rushed out of the broken door frame, each one carrying a weight from what they'd seen, what they'd heard; leaving the Noblesse amid the ruins of their home.

* * *

It hit him like a freight train, and blue eyes widened. Something was nearing his direction. He let it come.

* * *

Notes.

Thank you Elims, Laryna6, Cold April and Kaikouken for commenting!

Yep, this one...is going to make me a lot of enemies XD pls don't torch my house...at least not until I finish writing the fic. So I might have lied a little, variegated tulips don't broadly mean 'beauty,' they mean 'beautiful eyes'. But hey, as Argonautica said, eyes are the windows to the soul and everything! Sorry this came out a bit late again. Trying to figure out how Franken was going to scream was a legit! problem!

I felt like talking today, no need to sit through it~

The way this fic came together was so convoluted XD. I had the idea of a ~mysterious figure~, Faust (who wasn't named yet), come back to haunt Franken just because. I wrote some very very early crappy, make-your-eyes-bleed couple of chapters on a note pad and then never touched it again. Because it sucked. Majorly. Looking back, the stuff wouldn't have made sense because the rift between Frankenstein and Rai depended on Faust playing on Frankenstein's arrogance. Which he does do, here, but for something to honestly come between these two, there has to be something cataclysmic. And Dark Spear was a new addition. Dark Spear and Faust's dynamic duo made this all possible :)

So, much later, this chapter got penned down as notes. Then it escalated and I wrote the entire thing as a one-shot. I came sooo close to posting this one chapter as a one-shot, holy crap. But then I got a light-bulb idea to weave old fic idea with new fic idea into one great angst mess! So I cut off the quick resolution and worked backwards to write this. The early chapters from my first idea got modified (a lot) into 'Anger management' and 'Backlash.' Then it just built and built and more convoluted ideas got added. And then I decided 'there is no such thing as too much flashback...' Technically, 820 was the very first chapter I wrote for this fic.

(There was a time, in january and feb, where there was no school or anything, and all day, everyday - all I did was write fic. Like, there wasn't enough time so I had to get up earlier to write fic! Had the best time ever. I'm so glad and thankful you guys had a chance to try this story. And no, this isn't about to end lol, let's just say that we haven't even reached the half-way mark yet.)

So what about what happens next? Sing in tune - Bob the builder - Can this get worse? Yes it Can!

Um, if you bear with me, we're going to speed along the plot now...

(And reviews are absolutely beauuutiful, do jot down a thing or two if you liked the chapter! I love reviews! I breathe reviews! Thanks~)


	14. Relapse 1

Many thanks to Kaikouken (nerdanel on AO3) and Argonautica~

Also, _qdeanna_ has drawn fanart of Franken from chapter 13, and it's got a little animation going and it's really cool. If you need don't need your heart, have a look at the art - I've put up a link on my profile!

* * *

 **Unspecified time**

 **1000+ years ago,**

 **Lukedonia.**

Tailor

Raizel turned at his voice, and now the meticulously cleaned room was stacked with row by row of fabric rolls — one side of the room dedicated to the blacks, and the larger side of the room divided off for whites. Some of those mannequins he had were moved into the room, one standing behind him with pins jutting from the shoulder.

His desk had been cleaned over, and now it was covered by pedantically placed sewing supplies; Raizel could make out what few of the strange, overly-specific and very _human_ contraptions he knew: needles, thread, scissors, shears, and a many other funny-looking things.

A sectioned box filled to the top with buttons saw no space on the table, so it was placed on the chair beside it. The low table was taken too — there, Raizel blinked at the strangest and most intricate object in the room. It was square-ish in shape, large, chunky, and coiled with white thread, black thread, and a myriad of little bolts and metal parts. The threads met at a tip — a built-in needle, he recognised, hovering over a large, flat stage.

"That's a sewing machine." Frankenstein rose from his bow, bored of holding it already. "It's still slower than I would have liked, but I haven't had time to streamline a new design. But you'll agree that its more efficient than a spinning wheel?"

 _That…is nothing like a spinning wheel._

"That's because I invented this one, Master."

Raizel's crimson eyes flittered over to Frankenstein. They regarded him fondly and Frankenstein felt a certain, glowing warmth course through him. A brow twitched before his flustered emotions made Raizel quickly look elsewhere again.

"Um, Master?"

"Yes?" he answered, earnestly.

"Will you still allow me to take your measurements?" His eyes fell onto the length of measuring tape draped over his neck, charcoal and notepaper tucked in a pocket.

"Yes," Raizel nodded once.

"Great!" Frankenstein stepped forward, whipping the measuring tape off his frame. Then he almost flinched to a stop, pondering again. _How do I do this…without overstepping?_

"You're not overstepping."

He'd noticed his hesitation.

 _Fuck._

Frankenstein snapped taut, realising his unvoiced mistake. Raizel twitched.

 _Oh shit!_

 _Fuck._

 _No — I mean..._

 _Forgive me, My Lord…_

Raizel didn't blame him. "Sorry…it is just…you are very close right now. I will tune it out."

Their connection dulled down a few notches. Frankenstein tugged on his collar, sweating a little.

The rows of identical clothes he had found in that airless room — Raizel had made them himself. Not in the traditional sense, which Frankenstein was going to do, but he _literally_ made them: conjured the fabric out of thin air. Which wouldn't sit well with Frankenstein anymore. Any 'conjuring' was about to stop — if it meant spending even a _speck_ of Raizel's powers. That was why Frankenstein had trained himself to become a rather proud and capable cook — Raizel was going to get nutrition the normal way, not through his powers — and he'd asked to take charge of making his clothes. And shoes. And belts. And cravats.

"Erm...Master…for me to take your measurements, I need to loop this tape around your body in the widest and leanest areas."

He shuffled closer. His voice tightened. "My Lord, if you feel I am intruding in anyway, I ask that you tell me. Please. Ok?"

"Yes."

He'd better be taking this seriously. "If I make you the slightest bit uncomfortable, I want you to command me to stop," Frankenstein said, dryly. His expression hardened further. "I want you to restrain me. Please."

"…Yes," Raizel answered, a little strained.

Satisfied, Frankenstein nodded. "Alright. So." _Chest and waist first._ "The chest measurement is taken as a circumference of your chest at the widest point. Please stand in a relaxed posture and breathe out, Master."

Raizel did so, and Frankenstein kept cautiously to his side, looping the tape over. _"Thank you."_ He scribbled his findings down in the notebook.

"Next, the waist. I will be taking the measurement just above your navel."

"I don't have a navel."

"Oh."

Raizel's cheeks began to redden, and Frankenstein quickly bent to take the measurement. "Never mind, just around the leanest point, then." _Did…did all nobles just not have navels?_ How did he not anticipate such differences—they were an entirely different species anyway.

Frankenstein wrote down his findings slowly, giving Raizel time to recover. And a side note.

 _'No navel.'_

"….Your…shirt length — that is taken from the top of the shoulder, close to the mid-side of your neck, down to where you want the shirt to end."

He motioned to his side. "Here, I'm guessing? Standard length?"

Raizel nodded.

* * *

They went through the process, the shoulder width, the arm length, the wrist width, until Frankenstein finally turned to Raizel again.

"I need to measure your neck for the collar now, Master."

Raizel nodded.

"Excuse me." He wrapped the tape overly cautiously around his neck, sliding two fingers under it, "to allow some room." The measurement was easy enough, not that Raizel had even moved an inch the entire time — but Frankenstein brushed his fingers against his warmth, and for a moment, he didn't want to pull away. Raizel's pulse tapped against his touch, making Frankenstein all of sudden hyper-aware of his own.

And then he realised that his own…matched his.

 _Thump, thump, thump._

Rhythmic and methodical, like breath.

Their heartbeats — they were in sync with one another.

Frankenstein's brows creased. His own heartbeat was drowning out the feeling of the other, and he was feeling his own heartbeat rising… _so that must mean—_

"Is everything…alright?"

Frankenstein quickly uncoiled the measuring tape. "Yes, yes…uhh, let me write it down."

His cheeks began to burn now—doubly-red—Raizel's flustered-ness and his own combined in his face. He buried himself under his notes. _That was incredibly rude._ He scribbled down another sentence, whatever jumped into his head first: _Stop being, a buffoon._

He needed more time to calm down. Or was it, let _him_ calm down? Frankenstein scribbled down more: _Stop being ~ a buffoon !_

 _!_

 _!_

"I've never been bonded before." Raizel's voice resonated behind him and Frankenstein swivelled around, giving him his rapt attention. Raizel was still standing there, in that slightly spread out position, without having moved an inch. "It feels…" his red eyes drew far away, trying to grasp the right word in the distance. " _…Great."_

 _"Great?"_ He'd ended up copying Frankenstein from the start of the session. He wanted to chuckle, but now wasn't the right time. "We feel it the same way, right?"

"Of course."

"I feel like…I don't ever have to be afraid to sleep again," Frankenstein said, looping the tape back into a coil.

Raizel's lips parted.

"I feel…like I won't ever make another bad decision. I feel like I'm never lost even when I'm in a strange place."

"…"

"I feel like the sun is always on my back even when it's cloudy. Like I can always see stars, even when it's dark. Always…I-" Frankenstein stopped crushing the measuring tape.

"…"

"I do feel _great._ Too."

Frankenstein had always been good with words and Raizel would always listen. But this time, it wasn't enough, and he was lost for them.

"I can…trust you." Frankenstein frowned, looking deeply annoyed. "No. I _do_ trust you."

He looked up. "I trust you."

"…"

Raizel had frozen and Frankenstein felt his heart quicken again. He realised he wasn't going to get a response from him.

"Master?"

"…" Raizel looked at him.

"I'm going to measure for the trousers now."

Raizel nodded, belatedly. Frankenstein picked up the measuring tape again, and knelt down on one knee. "Hip measurement, then inseam…Afterwards, I still need you to choose which shade of black and white to use…there are different degrees of each colour," he said, fumbling to untangle the wad of tape.

"…."

"And the materials. I bought back 28 types of silk samples and 12 other fabrics—including Egyptian cotton. Lace. Don't forget lace—I think you'll find it quite nice. I'll have to learn to weave patterns to your liking later, but for now, I acquired some from the Normans."

"…."

"Don't worry, you can take your time. Then, I'll demonstrate the sewing machine for you. I've a weaving machine downstairs as well. What do you think?"

"…Yes."

* * *

 **Relapse**

 **1**

They came for them. Time and time again, they came for them.

But this time, they came for _him._

 _Him._

Frankenstein lurched back, throwing a half-transformed M-21 out of the skies as he held back his power. His rage.

"I said I didn't need your help!" he snarled, facing away from the children. He didn't even shudder, didn't even flinch as he felt the auras of his charges flicker cold at his voice.

Takeo, Tao, and Seira and Regis stood shakily in various forms of dishevelment, the nobles begrudgingly standing down while Takeo was speechless, Tao's eyes wide open in fear. Frankenstein bared his teeth, grinning, manic, and seething purple, just barely holding back the million heaving souls of the damned.

They'd never seen him like this, and it was only now they realised how tame he'd maintained himself on his previous fights. An acceptable facade. Now there was no holding back, for their sakes or his own. Frankenstein's purple energy was rolling in spades around him: the black, curling fingers of Dark Spear wrapping him in its grasp, an insatiable greed brewing. Each moment pulled him farther, and farther away from them.

He didn't wince as M-21 howled in pain below.

* * *

A few minutes ago.

The household ran head-first into the largest aura they could find.

 _"Can-can we even catch up?"_

 _"Stop slacking and keep running and maybe we will!"_

 _"But where the hell do you think he is? We're running blind, M-21!"_

 _"Follow Seira and I! Can't you feel his power emanating? He'd up ahead of us."_

 _"…That's him? Oh, good, I thought I felt like hurling, is all. Just Boss…ahhahahahaha…"_

But why was Frankenstein flaunting his aura if he was trying to run? They sped across the place, flying past confused onlookers and jay-running red lights. They followed the dark aura out of the city into an undeveloped open area, and they understood why Frankenstein came here.

A hefty, metallic humanoid had touched down opposite Frankenstein, skirting the perimeter, moving closer as the household watched with stony faces. Each of its steps felt heavy and abnormal, and it could have been walking on the moon. It wasn't bulging or burly like those anti-Clan Leader weapons, this was something else altogether. From this distance, they could see its synthetic muscles laced with metal and chemicals — it was built for one purpose — to fight.

They saw Frankenstein arch his neck and shake his shoulders back, laughing over the empty sounds until his powers shrouded him. When they neared him, guarded against his energy, they could hear the metallic man's voice echo over the grounds — eerie and repetitive.

 _"Where is the Noblesse?_

 _"Where is the Noblesse?_

 _"Where is the Noblesse?"_

Ten minutes out of the house, and Frankenstein had led the latest threat from the Union out into the lifeless terrain outside the city. Blues eyes flashed in their direction, a desperate, unsettling gleam in them, and Frankenstein blanked his expression into a still mask. He turned away from the children, leaving them speechless.

"You. Union dog. You can shut your goddamned racket already. _Hello, hi,_ you're looking for me," Frankenstein scoffed.

 _"I_ am the Noblesse."

The household shuddered behind him, and Frankenstein didn't look at them again.

"Now stop wasting my time and save me an aneurysm, won't you? Dying won't be much trouble, will it?"

He looked over his shoulder, the spite in his eyes not softening. "Get out of here. All of you. I need you to guard Master."

"We're out on his account," M-21 said, staring at his back. "We're going to help you. You need help, Frankenstein."

"I don't need your help, M-21!" Frankenstein exclaimed loudly. His wavering voice startled him. "This is an order — you all get out of the way."

He spread his fingers, making sparks slither from his fingertips and collect into those dark projections. Frankenstein chuckled, a cocky smirk stretching as he faced the enemy. He propelled himself into the sky. The enemy did the same.

M-21 gave the others a weary look. He jumped into the air: fear and adrenaline and many, rushing, squeezing things culminating together, undoing the knot in his throat and triggering a transformation.

* * *

M-21's face contorted, ribs compressing and creaking, hearing sounds that shouldn't be there as dust settled around the place where he was thrown. Frankenstein had beaten him down. Once, mankind hailed him calamity, and they'd never seen him like this. Like a man out of choices. A man on the brink.

"C'mon. Get M-21. We're leaving." Takeo took hold of the hem of Tao's sleeve, wrenching him out of his stupor. He knew, basically, that none of them were even close enough to be able to deal with the enemy before them; that none of them could even hope to put themselves on the battlefield. Not a transformed M-21, not Regis, and what made his blood run colder — not nearly Seira.

"Boss..."

Tao turned to leave with the rest of them, but he almost couldn't part eyes from the maggoty purple crawling under Frankenstein's skin, the grotesque possession spreading disease in his mind. When the man spoke again, Tao didn't know how much of him was left.

"Don't make me repeat myself again. _Get. The hell away_."

Tao swallowed. He dipped his head in a stiff show of respect, and followed Takeo and the noble children _the hell_ out of the way.

"Just come back, Boss."

So they raced back to the house, a shattered M-21 in their hands, bursting in on another sight that made their hearts jolt.

"What do you mean, you do not know what's happening?" Regis asked, agape, and then looked taken aback at his most _inelegant_ outburst. Raizel had strayed a long way from the balcony, the couch, the deep red of his eyes meeting them ridden with a kind of worry they never wanted to see again.

"I...can feel Frankenstein's rage. But I..." The concept was almost foreign to him.

"He has blocked me out of his mind completely. What has he done?" The children gritted their teeth, another wave of fear washing over them. "What is he doing?"

"Fighting," M-21 croaked.

The partially-transformed werewolf shuffled, trying to stand in a somewhat presentable fashion while still half-collapsed at Takeo's side. "He's fighting. Another of the Union's trump cards. He's — he doesn't need you. It's fine. Just let him handle it."

Raizel turned to him squarely, his red eyes watching blood stream down his body.

"...He did this to you."

His voice was a mere sliver.

But they heard it.

"...No...no, he didn't. He wouldn't, I..." M-21 choked.

"It was the Union," Tao interjected. Like an afterthought. "M-21 got thrown around by the beast the Union sent this time...that's why Boss put himself on the field." He paused, putting his shaking hands behind his back. He kept his eyes forward, feeling Regis and Seira's bore into him, Takeo's eyes skirting to his for a split second.

"He'll be fine. He told us he's got this, and he will. No need for you Sir to get out, heh!" Tao clapped a hand to the back of his neck, flitting his fingers through his hair. "I'll get M-21 patched up, he's good, _right?"_

"Yeah. Fine." Matter-of-fact. Or at least M-21 tried to make it sound so. Skin shifted around him as his body retracted, slowly, painfully, back into human form, and he let go of Takeo wearily. Takeo didn't let go of his arm.

M-21 could only smile in that calm, suppressed manner that was too wide, almost smug; one that would have sent the school children clapping and grinning, seamlessly fooled. Anyone but him. And to him, it only told of his desperation—loud and clear. Raizel didn't move, but M-21 could feel his sight hover over him; he felt almost stripped bare before his all-seeing gaze. Whether it was on purpose, in wordlessly denouncing his lies, or accidental in his failure to mask his power, M-21 didn't know. He was smiling, but his eyes were not. And when M-21's lips turned down, so did Raizel's _._

"I can feel Dark Spear's aura where he struck you."

"..."

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel-" Seira's voice sounded loud in the spacious room. He didn't lift his gaze off M-21's wounds, but M-21 was looking anywhere but at him.

But the whole room silenced, even Tao, especially Tao, and they'd bought the battlefield home. She continued. "Chairman Lee doesn't need our help. He cannot be distracted. Putting himself on the field was the best course of action," she said lightly. "Forgive my audacity when I ask of you to remain here with us. We were sent back by him to protect you, and as the Loyard clan leader," she changed suddenly, her voice sure and intent, "I will see to my duties."

The room grew distant, and Regis found himself glaring. Lying was second nature for Frankenstein, a fine art he'd honed —they knew it even if he never lied to them. Takeo would rather not, M-21 was pathetic at it and they all turned their hopes to Tao to fib if they needed to. But Seira.

She smiled, like she saw the modified humans do, and finished what they couldn't do.

Vermillion looked into crimson, and she held her stare. "He was adamant...and quite confident, really. I expect Principal Lee will return shorty, just in time for dinner. Let us sit down, Raizel-nim, and we can have tea."

Seira lied. Easily. Blatantly. Even her. But he didn't want them to fall to begging, didn't to betray their wishes; and oh, they were so close to begging.

"...Ok."

* * *

Through the slow-ticking ages, he replayed those last three minutes one hundred, thousand times. Each time, it grew quainter — a pinch more bitter, a tweak more illusory, until every single little detail that he obsessed over began to blur and dilute, making him wonder whether or not the smallest things that happened, _really happened_. Or wether if it was just himself, adding an extra pebble on the rock-bed of images and after thoughts to skew his memories.

It came back to him in flashes: he was in New Zealand, pretending to at least struggle, holding onto rope on a whaling ship as it sailed through a strait. The salt stung his eyes, the wind stung his skin, and in a flash of white, he was looking at the back of Raizel's head. He could smell camomile, fruity and fresh, billowing from hot steam in his tray. He shifted his eyes, averting them from Raizel's reflection to his own. And in that instance, in that immaculate room, he saw himself standing next to Raizel in dirty clothes. His wet hair was slicked to his face, he wore a thigh-length grey-coat, why was there sea-spray in his eyes? The room unlevelled, the floorboards began to creak and rock and he couldn't stand still. When he gasped, the camomile was replaced with brine. When he looked down at his hands, there was no tray; he abruptly let go of the rope he was securing.

He was in Russia, dressed in regency: a frilly shirt, deep green jacket with a pinched-in waist and padded shoulders, high collar and riding boots. He had worked his way up to the rich and famous, the wealthy and careless, mimicking their pointless small talk, and striking their popular postures as they waited on the Romanov monarchs to arrive — fashionably late. He'd answered the RSVP to the Winter Palace — why did all Europeans use _Répondez s'il vous plaît, '_ please respond,' when it was French? He was another one of many _Vladimirs'_ disguised as a trusty junker. When he toasted his glass of Tuscany wine, he was suddenly holding a teapot, camomile in his senses, the glint of Raizel's earring catching his eye a little. He turned away. Raizel was always there in his spot, safe and sound. Frankenstein smiled, pouring the Noblesse's tea. When dancers manifested in Raizel's room and a lady screamed in his ear, he was emptying his wine glass onto the ballroom floor.

He was in America, broke and broken, so he jumped on the gold rush bandwagon when it came to him at the right time, running headfirst into pitch dark caves and covering himself in dirt. When the pickaxe came down and he blinked his eyes, he might wonder whether Raizel would stay, this time, instead of leaving in the second-interval he turned his head. The wind washed away the fragrant smell of tea, and his eyes contracted when light hit his eyes, though it was dark in the cave, and voices were calling — the rocks were crumbling. He was still trying to see whether Raizel was still there when another man tackled him down, protected him from the rock-fall. He caught himself wondering if Raizel'd have stayed if he wasn't interrupted.

He was in Japan, a gaijin when Tokyo was still named Edo, hiding himself in long folds of gi and hakama, cloth tied over his hair and straw hat tied over that. He walked past dozens of paddy fields, walked past dozens of small towns, thriving villages, trying to find his next destination, the next scarce lead. Bandits slunk out, pointing rusty katana at his face. They told him it was always risky when travelling alone on those mud paths, but when he walked forward to face them, his straw sandals clacked against floorboards. When he opened his mouth to protest, familiar words spilled out of his mouth, Lukedonian words: _the humans' war has reached the northern mountains._ When he was back where his feet were, day became night; he was robbed dry.

It came to him in flashes, in a myriad of misplaced shards that came together un-neatly, un-prettily; he wondered why that was so, when the details were so vivid — every time he thought back he was reliving those three minutes. Raizel's slim silhouette blackening the brightness of the glass, their reflections skimming like shadows in the window, the fateful look-away to swirl at tea — he got it all down to needle-point; _hell,_ why did he not jump out after him?

 _Why?_

It came to him in stings, images of that scene fighting for attention in his crowded mind and conscience. What was he, if not hell-bound, heading to Tartarus, Yenma's black gates — if his dreams came chasing during daylight hours, and he was awake when he dreamed of pushing open double doors with his back, balancing a tray into a lightly furnished room. The ghost of a memory haunting him in daydreams, in the spaces between reality where he blinked out of consciousness. He was back in suit and long-bow, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose — he said the same things to Cadis Etrama di Raizel every time.

 _"Master?"_

 _"Muzaka has left much earlier than I expected."_

 _"And Roctis came by."_

He took fourteen steps in those last three minutes. He blinked six times. He made eye contact with Raizel's red eyes once. With his reflection.

He wished he could have tweaked his words then, somehow, nodding back out of another daymare at the turn of a new century. Though there was no way he could have known, no way for him to have _possibly_ prepared, he wished he could have just said one more word.

 _"Stay."_

* * *

 **A heap of Notes. Feel free to skip.**

Cravat - that fancy neck tie that Rai wears in those Lukedonia flashbacks. (Seira also wears one 24/7)

Gaijin - Japanese word for foreigner.

Junker - Pronounced 'yunker' - German word for upperclassman.

Navel - belly button (just in case cos I legit did not know before.)

Yenma - Or YanWang/Enma - Asian god of hell. (Really, there are alternate versions of this god in China, Korea, Japan.)

I got the references for the tailoring from tailorstore . com

* * *

And again, _qdeanna_ has drawn fanart of Franken from chapter 13 - thank you qd - I've put up a link on my profile!

* * *

Quick review replies because you guys are awesome~

Ocean - Thank you! I'm so glad this thing got your attention. :D

Silky - One hour? No way. Yes, but I hope the hurt hurts good at least.

Guest - Same! I wrote this to explore Franken's vulnerable and emotional side. I agree he's always so strong in canon so it's so interesting to think about. What's the boiling point? How much is too much for someone like Franken? Who went into hiding/ stayed mildly chill for centuries of years?

vita8881 - Glad to make your day :D Ahh thanks for your praise it really means a lot.

Madame aZure - Got worried with the scene jumping a while ago cos I thought it might have been confusing. But I'm not about to stop XD It's the best way to tell the story since a lot hinges on Franken's past. Anyway, there was basically a no win situation for everyone, right? It's terrible, because in the end how would Rai know he wasn't coming back when he jumped out of that window to fight? Both Franken and Rai ahhh.

Laryna6 - I feel like it was your headcanon, about nobles being shape-shifters, that got me the 'no navel' idea XD So if he wanted one he could just 'make' one. Imagine Franken's reaction to that. Yes - I do think that Rai made the decision not to bring Franken. Maybe he wasn't even expecting a fight? Though I'm sure he was expecting some sort of a fight, so he made sure Franken would be safe while he dealt with it. It's his duty and Muzaka is his friend. At that point, he would have had no idea that he went into something that he wasn't going to walk out of. So thats just great :/

TazzieLuv13 - Pls scream as much as you like. A lot build-up to get to this point XD Looks like it paid off! Thank you very much.

Nami - Thanks. I will see what I can do. If I can't think of anything else, Man w/ no mother can turn into a one-shot piece.

\- Yayyy! Thanks for commenting on the writing hehehe I'm such a word nerd. As Laryna6 said, everything in Noblesse is good and shiny until you think about it more deeply. Franken loving his home because he was a fugitive for centuries. Rai and Franken's reuniting after 820 years. Franked's 'overprotectiveness' of Rai. It all makes horrific sense in the context of that large gap of time. We don't go into Rai's head yet because it would probably look like hell had froze over, at the moment. :/

Guest - It made you cry? ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. I feel soooo accomplished, thank you! Ah, you caught the white tulips thing. Keep your eyes peeled, I've hidden a SHIT TON OF FORESHADOWING EVERYWHERE. It will (hopefully) all make sense as the story progresses.

Rembla - I am all here for the hurt :) Please enjoy.

Kaikouken - Yesssss the flowers and metaphors of love and devotion getting thrown around! I'm sooo elated you caught all of that :D :D Oh yes I was going to point out they do communicate in Canon - Franken asks what happened back then when he was desperate enough. But here, yes, Faust and Dark Spear have a great influence over him and it's not that they aren't communicating, Franken is afraid to. I agree, this is really the low point of Franken's character. He didn't want to talk, and didn't want to come to this because he knows Rai would never leave him. He knew something went sideways back then. But everything's done on a whim here and Franken falls prey to all those pent up emotions, and DS and Faust. This is probably one of the worst days in Rai's life wow. Thanks for the tears - that idea is so good yet so cruel. Wow. Rai needed to live just to see Franken and make sure he was ok, no matter what. No matter if it meant sleeping for centuries. The chapter is mostly from Franken's pov but leaving Rai's pov out, to some extent, gives that extra dose of *teary eye. And thanks so much for the review - I've reread it like 800x. Describing things as a 'house of cards' really got me. You made me notice things that I didn't think of before and !

vVanilla - Thaaaaaank you! So happy that I wrote something you can enjoy.

qdeanna - hi. thanks again for the art and mini animation ;_;

Willow - OooOOoh more plot coming up. This chapter was a big chunky cos I had to speed up the plot XD Anyway there's going to be extra flashback for everybody until it stops. And then the present day stuff will speed up.

So last chapter- Franken couldn't bear for Rai to see him in that kind of state and ran because he thought it was beneath him. He said a lot of things and accused him on a whim - he didn't plan to act like that but that's part of his loss of self control. In Franken's view, Rai technically doesn't owe him any explanation and very much 'does' get to do whatever he wants with him. But of course that's not the case with Rai. It's very illogical because Franken knows Rai would never leave him - he was hurt and had to enter sleep! But this came up with Kaikouken - Franken did leave at the end of that (train wreck) and abandoned Rai. So.

Thinking about the time periods really stresses me out though. Franken is human. For Rai, a decade could be a blink of the eye. Franken had to live through that 820 years to see Rai again. Rai had to sleep through 820 years to see Franken. But for Rai, the fight that made him go to sleep was essentially, yesterday. And then Lukedonia has changed, the Previous Lord and Clan Leaders are mostly gone/ are now traitors. Think of this - the Noblesse was gone for such a long time that nobles had forgotten who/ what the Noblesse was. Nobody had any idea of the Noblesse's mansion. Perhaps that was just Regis and Seria, being young nobles, but they're still 200/ 300 years old? It's like Rai had passed out of existence.

Thank you so much for reviewing. It gives me life. I'm open to constructive criticism~

\- earl


	15. Relapse 2

Disclaimer: This has no affiliation with Noblesse or its creators.

The Betas of the chap are of course, the lovely Kaikouken (Nerdanel from AO3) and Argonautica.

* * *

 **Unspecified time**

 **1000+ years ago,**

 **Lukedonia.**

Mind Talk

"Raizel-nim."

A bird had landed atop the tallest evergreen tree outside, flitting its beak through a wing in a quick preening movement. Wind ruffled the leaves, and he watched it flutter off before it clung onto another branch. A few chirps trilled from it as it landed. Raizel took one last, long look at the sparrow before pulling his attention away from his window.

"It is very good to see you, Raizel-nim."

Raizel lingered a moment, feeling the weight of those words. The weight of all the time spent on choosing those exact words, in that exact order and exact pitch of voice. The words felt stiff and coarse. He dipped his head once in acknowledgement.

"How have you been? The weather has been nice these days, hasn't it?"

An immediate silence followed. Not like before, where the pause had been calculated, accounted for, but an abrupt, uncomfortable silence in which the visitor's brows inclined for a moment. He was surprised at that entry. It actually required an answer. It was a bad choice of words. Raizel felt as uncomfortable as he did.

"I have been well," Raizel finally answered. "And you are right."

"…Pardon?" the visitor asked.

"The weather truly is, nice."

"Why, yes."

He seemed very surprised that Raizel had answered that. Both. Both questions. Raizel took his eyes off of him, settling them anywhere else.

"I do not see Urokai with you."

"No, unfortunately, he has the duties to attend to today. He has beseeched me to make apologies in his stead."

"…That is not needed, Zarga."

"Roctis and Edian have chosen to visit you with me."

"Thank you." Raizel's eyes fluttered over the two nobles behind Zarga. Edian began to redden, but she nodded her head with a smile. Roctis bowed, "Raizel-nim."

Zarga began to talk again. When he realised Raizel's answers became shorter and shorter, he resorted to reciting the current affairs of Lukedonia. As if it was a report for the throne room. Raizel's eyes drifted to the window. The brown sparrow had long gone.

"Zarga," Roctis piped up, after he'd finished speaking of the new measures to prevent the creation of more mutants. "I'm afraid we've taken your time. We should excuse ourselves soon."

Zarga nodded to him. "Raizel-nim, I'm afraid I must report to you of another subject matter. A more…sensitive one," he said slowly.

Raziel turned his full attention to him again. It had taken quite a lot of time for that statement to come out.

"Yes." He faced them starkly, ready to answer.

"A grievance must be filed, one concerning the entry and exits of the borders of each clan."

"…I am…this is under the sovereignty of the Lord."

"Yes. We sought an audience with the Lord."

Confusion settled on Raizel's face.

"The Lord has directed us to you, Sir."

"…"

Zarga's composure slumped an inch. "We didn't want to bother you, but it seems we should have come to you in the first place. It's about your…bonded."

"Frankenstein," Raizel said.

"Yes."

"No."

"Pardon?"

"Frankenstein is here."

The door clicked open, and Frankenstein took one step into the room before all the china slid to a stop on the silver tray he was holding. His smile flipped into a frown. He didn't even try to hide it. Blatantly, he frowned. Edian nodded a stiff head in his direction, but he didn't reciprocate. Roctis and Zarga only stared. He stretched a sly smile across his face again. When he neared Raizel, he dropped it. Frankenstein clinked the tea set over the table he'd set up next to the window. Ignoring the audience, he bowed to Raizel.

"Master, I see you have guests today. How pleasant."

Raizel nodded. Not to the guests, but to Frankenstein.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, Master?"

"No."

"Alright." Frankenstein simply stepped to the side and crossed his arms. To the guests, not Raizel.

"Master's _guests,_ is there anything I may do for you?" his voice sounded a note lower.

"Why, no, Frankenstein," Zarga stated.

"Hm," he answered airily.

Zarga eyed Frankenstein when he didn't budge a muscle.

"Your grievance, Zarga," came Raizel's voice. At this, Frankenstein's brows flitted up, probably in amusement. He wasn't going to leave.

Fine.

"I'm afraid the problem is Frankenstein, Raizel-nim. He freely moves within Lukedonia when he is absent to you."

"Yes."

Frankenstein looked like he was dead-set on _not_ rolling his eyes for the entirety of this talk.

"He has my permission to do so."

Frankenstein's eyes flew to Raizel and then the guests. Frankenstein had always been exploring Lukedonia, Raizel had just never tried to stop him.

Zarga pursed his lips at this. "I understand, Raizel-nim." No, he didn't know that until now, "but Frankenstein has been coming and going from the Clan Leader's territories as he pleases. He has caused incidents within the cavalry, and even the Central Order."

At this, Raizel's eyes shifted to Frankenstein. Frankenstein offered a tight smile.

 _Whatever he's saying, I have no idea what he's talking about._

 _Are you positive._

 _…Right, maybe I do mingle with the nobles of each clan sometimes…_

Zarga's voice droned on between them, "As such, he has reportedly been seen to take part in clashes with-"

 _How do you explain that?_

 _Master, they challenged me._

 _You fight Clan Leaders, Frankenstein._

 _Yes, but on my honour as a human, I couldn't back down when they genuinely wanted to test their powers against me. It's not like they could ever hope to ask a Clan Leader to spar with them._

 _Frankenstein…_

"And he has been known to be gathering dangerous amounts of intelligence from said clans-"

 _…_

 _I've been conducting surveys on how the nobles of each differing clan react to their leaders, Lukedonia, Lukedonia's domestic policies, and sometimes, when they're eager, how they relate back to their own clans._

 _…_

 _Master, you should know the Tradio Clan is a very toxic workspace. The Tradio have a lot to work out._

 _…How long does Zarga's list go on…_

"Causing general disturbances-"

 _He means, less of disturbance than them coming to hinder you, Master._

 _They came to visit me._

 _They came to annoy you. About me!_

 _It is fine, Frankenstein. I can handle this._

"but above all, the clans are not some playgrounds that-"

 _I can handle them all for you._

 _…Did you just express intention to fight my guests in my own house?_

 _No? No, of course not, Master._

 _…What is my best course of action to end this conversation._

"Frankenstein, this may be hard for you to hear, but the Agvain Clan has created measures against you-"

 _Would you like me to interrupt him, Master?_

"Raizel-nim, as you can see-"

 _I mean, may I, Master?_

 _…Do so politely._

 _I will try._

"Conclusively, this much evidence is just-"

"Shut up, Zarga."

Raizel turned his head to Frankenstein, mild and slow.

 _…Sorry._

"Ehem. My, that was rude of me, Zarga," Frankenstein said, clearing his throat.

 _…I couldn't help it._

Raizel let out an exceptionally long sigh, to the guest's surprise.

Nobody questioned it.

"But I don't have the time to go back and refute every accusation you've laid against me. So I'll just say it right here, before my Master, and you can take his word on the matter. I'm not. Trying to. Usurp. Your clans," Frankenstein let go of his crossed arms and walked closer a couple of paces.

"So I make conversation with the cavalry when it pleases them. So I show them what a human can do when they ask of it. So I might have educated…er… 'corrupted' them with the idea that _some_ of their leaders are, in fact, lousy leaders."

 _Frankenstein._

 _I will stop immediately._

"Besides, what do you mean 'all the clans?' I am welcomed to the Landegre, the Kertia, the Mergas—"

"What Frankenstein means to say is that he is sorry," Raizel said.

"What?"

Raizel didn't turn to look at him.

"Yes," Frankenstein said. "I. Am. _Sorry,_ Zarga," he enunciated. And he tilted his head to one side, eyeing them. "Sincerely sorry." He gave them a soulless smile.

"Fran _kens_ -" Zarga walked a step into Roctis's outstretched hand. Frankenstein wondered if he was doing that in Urokai's place, or something.

Roctis cleared his throat. "Frankenstein, we accept your apology."

"Gracious of you, Roctis," Frankenstein answered.

"And we trust that you will honour the Clan borders from hereon."

Blue eyes met red again, deciding whether he should answer passive-aggressively or not.

No, Frankenstein. 

_…Yes, Master._

"Of course. My — _human_ — word, Roctis."

Raizel sighed again, drawing their attention, but not Frankenstein's.

"Would that be all?" Frankenstein asked, turning away. He began to pour Raizel his tea, clinking teaspoon against cup a little too loudly.

"That is all. Raizel-nim," Roctis said, dipping his head, "I am glad to see that you are well. My last visit was years ago, but I hope that we can visit you again soon. Please take care of yourself.

"Frankenstein," he said.

Frankenstein looked up from the tea, but didn't turn back to Roctis.

"Look after Raizel-nim."

Frankenstein remained there. "You have my word."

Edian did not look pleased in the least bit. "Raizel-nim, it was good seeing you."

"Good bye, Raizel-nim," Zarga said warmly.

"Farewell," Raizel answered. He lingered there until they all left.

* * *

Frankenstein placed his cup on the sill. The scent of jasmine tea wafted around the room.

"What was that about?"

"What was what?" Raizel said, eyes lingering in the doorway.

"Did they have to bring all their suspicion and animosity into this room as well as their accusations? I'm amazed."

Raizel finally turned towards the window. He only looked out for a moment before he moved away to settle in a chair. Frankenstein moved his tea next to the low table.

"If I'm that much of a problem for them, they should have come and said what they wanted to my face. Sorry, Master."

Frankenstein sat down opposite him.

"They didn't used to be like that," came Raizel's voice, quiet.

Frankenstein pushed off his glasses, resting them in his lap. "What did they used to be like?"

"…acquiescent."

 _Acquiescent?_

Now… "they just feel like all the other nobles," Raizel said over his tea.

 _They feel guarded?_

Raizel put down his cup without a noise.

 _Ever since I've come here?_

Raizel blinked. "No. Long before you came here, Frankenstein."

Frankenstein caught the note of fondness when Raizel said his name, and smiled despite himself.

He hated when they came to visit. It wasn't like he minded Muzaka or even Raskreia, the few times they came. As long as they could make Raizel happier, then Frankenstein welcomed them. But every couple years or so, it'll be smiles plastered on faces, greetings with empty voices. It was strange. Because Raizel felt so joyful when Frankenstein announced their visitors, Roctis or Urokai or whatever — yet Raizel felt so remorseful when he led them up to his room.

So they didn't used to be like that. Didn't used to ogle him like a zoo-animal. But visits were becoming frequenter and frequenter. Then why did they isolate Raizel like they did, now? _What had caused the change?_

"I don't know."

Frankenstein's expression went sorrowful for him.

"I don't mind," Raizel smiled up at Frankenstein. "I don't mind."

"I mind," Frankenstein frowned.

Raizel looked lost for a moment.

"I don't know what they're trying to get out of this, but I don't like it when they're. Them." Frankenstein cringed, for a lack of a better world. He didn't understand. But he'll never become like them. He won't ever do that to Raizel.

"Frankenstei—"

"But as long as I'm here I won't let any of them do a thing against you."

Raizel beamed. "They…are not like that. But thank you."

Frankenstein shrugged it off. "Is there anything in particular you'd like for dinner tonight, Master?" Frankenstein asked, changing the subject. He flopped onto the opposite seat, getting comfortable. "Whatever you want." Frankenstein shut his eyes. This might be a long wait.

"Cake."

Frankenstein cracked open an eye. "For dinner?"

"I want cake," Raizel finished delicately.

What could Frankenstein do? "Lemon then? Or perhaps honey?."

* * *

 **Relapse**

 **2**

 ** _Do it._**

 _*Snap*_

The end was always easy. Easy, easy, like making knuckle click. There came no sound. There was no whimper. Only the thud of the body as it hit the floor: chest to the ground, and head facing Frankenstein, staring. Easy peasy; dainty and delicate. The crack of bone under his fingers was an intimate finish, and his hands tingled — savouring the feeling. The pleasure it gave him was a visceral rush and Frankenstein wanted to laugh.

 ** _Ha, Ha._**

He didn't. So Dark Spear did it for him — his head became a comedy. He didn't feel like this when he felt the child's bones break. Break in six places. _Oh what was his name?_

 _Fuck._

So many centuries and so many names. He'd have forgotten his own if it wasn't for _him._

 _Oh yes. M-21._

Well, that was what they called him. Right — the Union took his name. He wondered whether M-21 envied the other children, Takeo and Tao — at least they got to keep their names. It didn't feel great when he broke M-21, throwing him around. Frankenstein suddenly gasped in the bloodied air, inhaling deeply so as to slow down his heart rate, stabilise his breathing. _M-21…_ What he'd done to him wasn't necessary.

 ** _Oh?_**

Frankenstein buckled, looking at the ground and the dizzying set of footprints he left behind. Slowly, he gave into his fatigue, resting on a knee under the strain of a million damned souls, and he tried to piece himself together again — only himself.

Frankenstein's eyes trailed onto the corpse beside him. He watched Dark Spear's remnants writhe under its skin. He sat back, wrapping his hands loosely around his knees. The corneas of the dead man's open eyes blotched, drying up in the air. _Lord, he felt good._ Dark Spear curled backwards, almost impressed. But never satiated. Its dull roar broke into a chorus of whispers, sniggering, but they need not push him right now. Now yet.

 _Lord, he felt great._

They sent a strong one, this time. Strong enough to force him into a corner, force him to unleash the damned and give himself up for partial possession. For their playtime. Strong enough for him to bare his teeth at even the children under his wing.

 _Run, you idiots._

It was funny, really, and Frankenstein found himself smiling. For the first time in a long time, he was alone again. Alone like how it was before, for many years. His master couldn't touch him. It had taken Frankenstein centuries to perfect a mind barrier of this calibre: potent enough to block even the Noblesse. For the time being, anyway.

But he didn't plan to use it so early. _Damn._ He'd planned to use this — the mind barrier — as a last resort. The final battle. Use it to fulfil his pledge to the end. He'd kill the unkillable, give himself over to Dark Spear one last time, and Cadis Etrama di Raizel could do nothing save feel him die. But that didn't matter. Frankenstein scoffed, finally laughing out loud and inviting Dark Spear along with him. They simmered quiet as his chuckle surprised them. He'd planned for something like this all along. To fight his Master's final battle in his place.

And die.

Only…h'de miscalculated. This wasn't the decisive battle: there were more people to beat to a bloody pulp, more of a ladder to climb. Frankenstein didn't plan on using this so early.

But he was still 820 years too late.

 ** _He abandoned you…_**

Frankenstein jolted awake. His smile sunk, and the rush of his latest kill melted away in his fingertips. He was trembling, and he clenched his fists before claws manifested again. _Control…control, control!_

He craved release. Funnier—Frankenstein would scrape death to avert it. Because nothing, _oh nothing_ , could ever come close to the ecstasy of blood on his knuckles, his hands at a throat. And every time he fought for real, Dark Spear burst in, catching him red-handed in his love affair. He couldn't cheat Dark Spear no matter how he tried— _as if_ anyone could ever give him the craze he wanted.

 _No._

Needed.

No sane person _wanted_ to be tainted. Then again was he positive he was still sane? Many insane people thought they were. One man and a million against the world. And each other. And in the end, he was still by himself. He didn't even have all of himself. He was half a man for a long, long, time, and fighting became solace. Union member by Union member, he fought to the death. And again; again, again! Frankenstein couldn't bear to look down one more time. He was disappointed by the corpse.

 ** _…abandoned you._**

The pleasure of the fight subsided, and the last eight centuries came crashing down. Frankenstein stripped his mind from the scene. The nostalgic pang for rush distracted from his dread of solitude. The last crack in his restraint gave way.

"Shut up."

 ** _Abandoned you!_**

" _Shut up shut up shut up_."

His voice echoed against the scorched earth. Dark coils licked at his rage.

"Shut—Up!"

 ** _Hnnnnn?_**

He tipped over the edge, reliving those moments on the floor, at Raizel's feet, hysterical.

 ** _…We curse you. And you…_**

 ** _…curse…_**

 ** _…_** ** _him._**

"SHUT UP!"

They did.

He felt bad for feeling good.

* * *

"We're approaching the area now. Cut all communications. This is a sensitive operation and we keep this contained. Understood?"

Faust leapt from another building, landing lightly, as if he were weightless, on a flat rooftop. _"Understood?"_ he voiced alone. From all directions, pressure pressed onto the rooftop, shaking its foundations as many more landed to encircle him.

 _"Don't tattle to the first and second elders—"_ a voice floated, mockingly, "obvious already, Sir." She smiled sweetly, breaking the circle to clack her heels to the edge of the roof. "That's what we're here for — going behind the first and second elder's backs, heheh."

 _"Ignes,"_ came a voice. Another man appeared — a noble — and he swept his long, white cape behind him. "Manners."

"Father," Ignes answered, not looking. Her hands stretched behind her back. She leaned over the rooftop, searching the view.

 _So Roctis would come when I take his daughter?_ Faust grit his teeth behind his mask, and smiled through his eyes. "Generous of you to join us, Fourth Elder."

"Faust."

"…Yes?" _Are we all on first name basis now? How sweet of you._ He cocked his head without moving his eyes. "Roctis?"

Roctis narrowed his eyes, but he followed his smile. "What Ignes was called for. You _lie._ There is no way you can apprehend _him._ "

He stepped forward, into the circle of faceless, mindless weapons loyal to their creator — Faust —no longer really living.

"You brought Fifth Elder here?" Faust's amber eyes remained smiling, but they grew darker. Harsher. He wasn't smiling behind the mask.

"You brought the Ninth," Roctis stated.

The Ninth Elder waved from the circle, a musty old man and a _spider,_ "I was invited, Fourth Elder."

"As was Ignes," Faust added. He turned to see the fifth elder, arriving gauntly behind Roctis. Fifth Elder, the werewolf, would most definitely alert the Second Elder, Maduke _._ That was less than desirable. But Faust flit the feeling away. _Fine._ One more into the loop. The second elder didn't liaise with the first. This operation could still go on _somewhat_ discretely. He'll still get what he wanted.

"The more the merrier, Lunark," he beamed.

She nodded, greeting back, "Sir."

"Now, if I may ask you all to get a move on, we might be in time to see the Noblesse tire himself out. It's simple, after that. We all pounce. Any questions? Do you need a repeat?"

Roctis scrunched his brows. "You're positive it's the Noblesse you've got fighting your men."

"Man," he corrected.

Roctis sighed shortly, "Faust, I suggest you don't play—"

"—You misunderstand, Roctis. I meant what I said—'man.' I sent my most advanced experiment to kill him. Best case scenario, he's dead. Second best, we get there, _now, preferably_ , and finish him off with a little…flair."

"…That thing you've kept on ice for five hundred years?"

"That thing I've been working on for five hundred years," he said, voice suddenly scraping. It was like knife was scraping knife, blunting both, " _Yes_ —the thing I designed to kill the Noblesse, for five centuries. Since I've modified it so that it can sense the Noblesse's powers, I'd say we don't have much time before the fight's over. Now, if you'd please."

"You really think you can kill the Noblesse?" Came Roctis's voice. But it wasn't warning, wasn't mocking. "How will you do it?" He lowered his head slightly.

"Everyone has a weakness."

Lunark, Ignes, the Ninth Elder and the faceless men all turned to him. Faust trailed up his hands, tightening his mask. "Everybody knows what the Noblesse's is. _Hah_ — he has many…Most of us, know, anyway," he said thoughtfully, glancing at Ninth Elder. Ninth Elder squirmed under his sight, but didn't dare to rebut. Ignes chuckled lazily.

"But only one of them matters." Faust looked Roctis straight in his red eyes. "Cadis Etrama di Raizel _is so_ sentimental. I'm just the only one who knows how to hit that weakness where it matters."

One by one, the faceless weapons passed Faust, dropping away soundlessly off the building behind him. Like a suicide troupe. "I know how to hit his weakness like a dagger, and twist it."

Faust turned his back upon them all, and neared the edge of the building, "I want to hear him scream," he whispered.

"He won't _scream."_ Roctis said flatly.

"Not even for his bonded?"

Roctis stopped. Faust didn't face him again.

"Care to join me, then?"

He jumped.

* * *

Notes

Acquiescent - (I learnt this word pretty recently so I was like - oh, gotta use XD) meaning, complying silently, without protest.

I know - dry ending to the first half but comfort food~ Looks like the present day stuff is going to slow a bit. Franken goes and saves M-21 from hurting himself in the battle by...hurting him out of the battle. Yep. Really, all he was trying to do was throw him out of the fight - that wasn't a opponent he could face. But that didn't go well at all...After the next full flashback chapter it's full on Stuff Happening. Thanks for reading :)

Madame aZure - Ahahaha - I'm going with the 'nobles are made by their single parent' head canon here. But nobles are pretty much shape-shifters too right? Raizel can morph his own clothes (and hair?). SO, if he needed a belly button he'd make one. Imagine Franken trying to remeasure that area to get 110% accuracy AND HE SUDDENLY MAGIC'D A BELLY BUTTON. Heheheheh. Thank you, I'm all here for the tragedy.

XxDark BeautyxX - Their heartbeats sync when they're either really close together, or one of them opens the bond really really intensely! In the ficverse, anyway. And yeah that makes the last chapter much worse T.T Sorry. Not sorry. (Maybe a little sorry D:) That...that is a great summary. Noblesse, get on it! Yeah, the union guy is totally just a plot device XD Glad that you liked it!

TazzieLuv13 - Hope you like it. This chapter and the last chapter actually got split into 2 chapters. And then I had to add another flashback to fix up the word count. Thanks for reviewing.

Laryna6 - You know, the thing that made me have to chop this and make a new chapter was because I wrote that last part - Franken getting stuck in that one moment - as a really last minute addition. I agree the kids are probably having an equally Fun Time. Rai tells them to go look after Franken, Franken tells them to go look after Rai - they are so disorientated and don't know what to do!

Willow - Sooo happy you enjoyed it. And sorry about the delay too.

Kaikouken - Trying to find more space for comic relief because dang, am I angsty .-. Ahhh, thanks for that. 'Franken stopped looking for Rai in the end.' And the fact that he didn't recognise Rai when he was literally that close (in the start of the manhwa) takes on a whole new meaning when you reread. Either Rai had lost so much power/ his aura was so small that Franken had trouble feeling it - or - Franken could no longer instantly recognise Rai's aura. Or at least, wasn't look for it, like you said. My heArt. Also if anyone else is reading this - pls look up the "inseam" that Franken was supposed to measure after the scene went 'cut.'

I'm sorry about the delay, but chapters might coming out slower for now - life just got busy D:

Thanks


	16. The Theft of Fire

Disclaimer: This is not affiliated with Noblesse.

Credits: Kaikouken, (Nerdanel on AO3) thanks for all your valiant work.

This chapter is bought to you by BLOOD AND GORE. And a case of the Swear Words. Pls be aware.

* * *

 _"I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world." -_ Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

* * *

 **Unspecified time**

 **1000+ years ago,**

 **Many years before a human reached Lukedonia.**

The Theft of Fire

His arms were sprawled, eyes rolled into his head and his heart — his heart was lying a metre away from the hole in its chest. Obvious.

Dead.

But the body was still warm. The man snapped up, picking up his pace as terror pumped into his bloodstream, and each beat thudded along with his running until his footsteps fell behind. The brand of the Union was sewed over the breast of his white uniform; pen and clipboard were abandoned behind him. He skidded to a stop. The man slammed down onto a knee, swiping a finger under the next victim's jawbone.

Already dead. But not so obviously.

The Union agent shakily peered over the body. For the first time, he noticed the red indentations pressed into the victim's neck. Ligature marks. Bloodshot eyes stared dryly back at him. Death by asphyxiation. He hurried forward, his uniform dragging past the body as he stepped over it. At the next victim, he didn't bother checking for a pulse. The body was facing him, completely whole and seemingly untouched. Except for the head. The head was splattered on the wall. Definitely dead.

He simply walked over to the next one lying a few metres to the left. This one had no arms, leg only up to its knees, and his jaw was shoved up until it wedged into the skull. Dead. He strode a large half-circle around it, evading the blood, and arrived quickly to the next. Another body's long black hair lay plucked from its skull, and scattered all around it. And all around the union member. And so was the top of the scalp. Dead.

The Union agent rounded the corner, walking slowly, leisurely. Another body lay scrunched in a foetal position, something jagged and chunky wedged out of its back. He neared the pool of blood. _Oh._ It was the spine. He looked up through the shadowy hall, willing his eyes into focus. Something still hot smushed under his shoe, and he stilled into a statue. _Squelch._ Slowly, he lifted a tentative, shaking foot. A sticky, smothering sound made him hesitate to look down. His shoe didn't come away clean.

"…Thirty six…thirty six thirty six thirty six…" He counted out loud to drag his mind back into calm. "Thirty six dead…counted thirty six dead…just thirty six."

He looked down. It was guts that piled at his feet in a tangled mess, and he quickly stumbled away. The Union agent closed his mouth as his eyes trailed up, finally adjusting to the dim light in the great hall.

"My — god."

The great hall was a garden where the dead grew like grass. A carpet of bones, severed people, adorned the entire room. They draped the length of the hall, their limbs out-jutting, their eyes unblinking and their many heads strewn. The walls were red and he tried not to think why. The smell unravelled him.

He looked to his left.

Unfinished experiments littered the room. The archives were completely ravaged. Files laid destroyed. Chemicals were split.

He looked to the right.

Dead scientists were splayed about.

More dead.

 _More, and more, and more._

All his comrades, all his superiors, everything he'd worked towards in his life for the Union. Destroyed. The Union agent stumbled, slumping weakly against a pillar. He stood there, panting, choking on nothing and clutching on for support. His knees gave out. All was finished. _Who had done this?_ What experiment did his superiors lose control of? What monster could have caused this murder.

Murder?

Even that was too kind a word. _Massacre_. This was a massacre. He churned up, suddenly, the reason he'd come to this base slowly coming back to him.

 _Where are the souls?_

The Union agent steadied himself, searching for the door. He couldn't forget the lengths they had gone to acquire those souls. The raw materials for their finest invention. The things they did kept lesser men, _weaker-willed men_ , from their sleep. Entire wars were orchestrated in this very hall.

Diseases, created in those very labs. Famines, designed by those lying dead, right there.

They were arsonists, pillagers and killers. And the best minds mankind had to offer. The fight for mankind's survival and supremacy — this was where the war was waged. He needed to know where the souls were. He needed to save the base's most important experiment.

* * *

The Union agent moved weakly to the door, plastering his eyes ahead and not risking another look towards ground. He followed the light, moving through a tunnel-like pass. He tread over bodies, not realising that these bodies - they were still twitching. This base had lost everything, but for him, there was still a mission to accomplish. The ends had never justified the means more than ever before.

He burst into the light. A tall man stood in the centre, left side facing toward him. "You…you're alive…?"

He tried to hurry forward, but stumbled in the ruins of the experiment room. _Ruins?_ The agent looked up and realised the roof had been blown clean apart. But this was still strange. A roof of this size would have caved in, crushing all. _Why was the room hollow? Where did the roof disappear to?_

"You're alive — who, what—" he fumbled over his words, trying to figure out what he wanted to know most. " _Dead_ — which branch of the Union do you belong to? How did you survive?"

The stranger's long, blonde hair fluttered over his face, covering his expression, but his mouth was open and gaping. Going through the motion of screaming, through no sound came from him.

"I'm asking you how you survived! What the hell happened here?!" He tugged on his arm, only to flinch back immediately, as if he'd touched something fiery hot. But no. The blonde man's skin was honestly… _burning._ Out out of nothing, purple erupted from the place where he'd touched him, and the Union agent stumbled away. "I don't understand."

The blonde man exhaled heavily. His breathing sounded tight, croaky, as if he were breathing shards of glass. He turned his head to face him. The agent faltered. Horror reflected into his eyes.

The blonde man had turned his head, but he was only half a man. The right side of his face was _demonic_ , as if under his skin, just barely stretched across, was a million milling insects. His right side was on fire — purple sparks flashing all across the skin, like a lightning storm engaged on the surface. A simmering sound reached the agent's ears and he backed away, though he didn't intend to run.

This was an animal.

No sudden movements.

No sudden _breathing._

But the 'thing's' eyes were looking straight at him, staring, and in a millisecond recognition came over the burning man.

"….It looks like…I've missed someone, everyone," the burning man said.

* * *

17 minutes ago.

"Next time I ask you a question, I expect a speedier answer. Unless you want me to reprimand you. How many senior scientists, do you think, have time to listen through all your useless babbling?" Frankenstein recited boredly.

A frantic voice replied, "Yes…I understand, of course!"

"I understand, of course—Sir," Frankenstein finished, through some strain. It was a terrible cliché, this. How easy was it, to play the authority card in a debauched, hierarchical organisation like this. _This easy;_ Frankenstein frowned, glaring his way out of the security measures.

"Yessir! It's through this way, Sir."

The escort led him to the end of the great hall, packed by scientists, doctors, alchemists, potion makers, mathematicians and philosophers — all contributing to the _greater good._ Frankenstein held back his urge to scoff.

"It's here. I'm…I don't have clearance inside Sir…"

"I think I can handle going down a _dark_ tunnel, Mister. Run along now."

"Yessir. Thanks for coming from the other base…we haven't heard from you for a while. Co-ordination is key within the Union. Thank—"

"—Touched, now can you let me do my job? Are you going to hold yourself responsible if I'm late to the other bases?!"

"Excuse me, Sir!"

Finally. It hadn't being half an hour since he'd infiltrated this stink hole, and he'd being pestered by a dozen security measures that he'd promptly broken. Then the village idiot jumped out of nowhere and led him straight to the invention of doom. _Ah — nothing like good old-fashioned sabotage._ Rid of the young Union member, Frankenstein opened the stone door. "…At least I know I'm heading in the right direction."

Another door, a metal one this time, blocked the way. The one behind him dragged shut and he was in pitch black. A yellow spark flickered. Through the darkness, Frankenstein produced a glowing aura through his hands. He pressed a finger over the lock. Gold energy swirled over the metal bolts, cracking them open. With another flare of yellow light, he pushed the second door open.

 _Damnit._ Another obstacle stood in his way. Frankenstein knocked on the walls at his side, then strode back to tap on the first stone door. It was thick. Higher quality and more valuable than if entire villages put their life savings together. _Charming._

Time was still a factor in this. He gingerly spread his power over the next door. Frankenstein closed his eyes as his bright, glaring energy swept forth, searing through the obstacles. The heat radiated all around him and he channelled it to a stark, controlled point. Frankenstein closed his eyes. The energy blast sped clean through the next seven doors. Save time on lock picking.

Frankenstein drew back, satisfied with the newly crafted tunnel. He blew over his fingers nonchalantly, masking his golden aura again. He didn't bother checking behind him. No doubt the Union was alerted on the other side of that door, but he'd have enough time to steal back his research and then _turn-tail-and-run._

The room was dark, without a single light, but his modified eyes weren't normal. He could make things out. The circular room was lined with a strange, not-made-of-metal, and not-anything-he-knew-of material. He frowned. Cords and strange wiring were spread out from every inch under it; he could see them poke off the edges and off the corners. There were no windows, no fireplace, and no…anything that suggested people worked here. He had expected to stun at least some Union workers down here but it was deserted. Actually. This place…he could feel something in the air and something laced in the walls that was slowly, but surely, quashing down on his aura. It was hard to spark up his bright powers in this dark place. This room was built as a prison.

Something caught his eye. A coldness overcame him.

 _Am I…scared?_

He pushed the thought away, but it lingered over him. Was it the walls? He felt like he was being watched. This place felt wrong. And there was something wrong with his eyes. It was dark in here, but in the corner of the room, he saw _nothing_. A pitch blacker than pitch black. It was a total abyss. What could be darker than even darkness?

He neared the nothingness. It didn't matter what it was or what it might be for — he'd kill it with his power and leave. Then trash this place, so no one else got his research or this wretched base. His eyes widened. Eight people loomed into eight, ragged shapes. Frankenstein moulded a golden projection with his aura and struck the wall with its light. In one, chunky movement, the people turned their heads towards him. But they weren't people. Not anymore. Their skin was infected into something unlike anything he'd seen before, worse than mutant plagues or modified diseases. Something that ate away their insides and the humans were looking at him through shells. He wanted to retch. Physically, he felt sick.

How could they have done this? Was this another pandemic they were hoping to spread?

Frankenstein neared the figures and swallowed. "Can you hear me?"

The heads glowed in his direction — a deep, sickly purple silhouetting sunken bodies. They had no faces he could see, only dark blanks. It was as if they were cooking, somehow, flames dancing atop their bodies.

"Are you alive?"

Just barely.

"…I'm going to get you out of here. I'm going to get you all out of here."

He surged more of his bright aura forward, sending out projections of his power to light up the rest of the prison room. "Even if it kills me, I'm going to stop this. You're free now, and I'll save you. I promise I'll try turn you back into normal; I'll do everything I can."

He held out a hand to the first infected.

 ** _"Who…are…you?"_**

It struck him. The tangled mass of ghoulish tendrils pounced. Frankenstein lurched, but then stood his ground. He wouldn't leave these eight to die. **_"Eight?"_**

 _"Hghh?!"_

He realised what was happening. The horde of blackness slithered off, out of the person farthest from him and releasing their limp body. They fell to the floor, skin sucked dry, bones flaking away. Dead. Seven were left, and another plod onto the floor. Six were left, and another shattered their skull to the ground. The horde of fiendish illness latched onto him, and when he pulled back, they followed, crawling under his clothes, over his flesh — inside of him. And he knew the hosts of these entities were long beyond saving. Any thought of logic and reason of how this could have become scared him beyond belief. His tears vaporised into nothing.

 _"Guh…How many are you?!"_

One, by one, the people fell dead, until there was only the one he was holding onto. The last person, on the brink of death, spoke to him, looking listlessly into his eyes. **_"We are many. Many…many…"_**

Suddenly, he understood.

 ** _"You can't save us."_**

The last drop slunk out of the broken host, leaving it mummified and crumbling to the floor. Frankenstein could feel them now, thousands upon thousands rushing through his nerves and relaying their deaths, their lost parts, their anger. He was angry.

"Let me try!"

He knew who they were, why they were here, and why they had to possess those eight people. He'd done this. The luminous design of a soul weapon loomed from his head, and he showed his intruder who he was. His life's work, what he always dreamed of; how it — _they_ — should have been.

 ** _…You created us?_**

His body ignited.

 ** _You made this possible?_**

Hands and teeth and tongue squirmed to eat him limb from limb.

 ** _You condemned us to this life?!_**

"No!" he yelled out to no one and everyone. "You're innocent…I didn't—" His body shook. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't imagine you'll be created like this! It wasn't, it wasn't meant to be this way…"

They curled backwards for a second.

"…It wasn't meant to be… _this way_ …"

.

.

.

 ** _We Curse You._**

The room blinked into darkness again. Frankenstein's aura flickered quiet as he let the people he'd caused to die, possess him. His bright, golden aura melted in their wake, and he felt his power corrode at their touch. Masses and battlefields worth of rot wreathed over his body in an instance. He grew rancid. They tainted his body and soul, and all was laid bare before them.

"Then, I welcome you," Frankenstein said.

The shame curled over, entrenching Frankenstein in hatred. He could hate so much and hate so ferociously; it hurt to care so much. And he wanted to help them, wanted to uphold them with the dignity they deserved and honour they should have. But there was none of that left. Somewhere beneath the whispers, in the spark of a memory to hold onto, he was so _glad_ Tesamu had left him. There was no one else who would have to see him like this. No one but him and _them_. And they tangled and screeched, the awful daring of an moment's surrender taunting them. So they crept from his body, into his outstretched hand, creating a twisted, dirtied version of the luminous soul weapon from his memories. The form of a double-bladed spear slithered into being.

He could never produce a bright spark in his hands again.

* * *

Now.

The Union member looked at him, wide-eyed and staring. "…You killed every — _kuh_ — will you kill me?"

"Should we kill him, too?" His voice was searching somewhere, looking for approval with a tingle in its note. _"Will that help?"_

The Union agent swallowed, though there was no moisture to swallow. "Who — are you talking to?" he asked. Though he knew. The silence made him grit his teeth. The man, however, looked as if he was racking his insane brain trying to answer, trying to remember.

"I don't know," he replied after a while. "I tried asking some of them. I—" He broke off, haunted, as if in this moment he was more scared than the Union agent. "But they can't remember. They can't remember who they — are…were. They've all… just… _forgotten_." Then his expression changed, and his eyes darkened with an inconsolable anger.

"They've had it _stripped_ …stripped from their souls."

"They?"

"They? Yes. They're dead."

"You can't keep them in there," the Union agent whispered. His gaze darted around wildly, sweat clinging the backs of his garments to him. "You can't keep them in there with you…Noble or not, it's not designed to be kept inside one being," he said.

The split-face turned to the Union agent again, contorted. "Don't compare me to those _filthy_ —" He was cut off, consumed by a wave of pain. The blonde man rocked backwards, and the purple seethed on his body. "GAH—" All of a sudden, he arched his back, flung his arms in strange, rigid angles, and yelled. Then he jerked down, facing the ground huffing as if choking on shrapnel.

"You're human?" Came the agent's astonished voice. A human — but he was scarcely human. This was a monster in a man's body.

"Run."

The agent heard, but he didn't move.

"I said, you take your bloody, bloody hands, and your guilty, guilty conscience, out of my hundred metre vicinity." His voice shook with rage. "Get the hell away from me."

"You would…let me go?"

"No."

"…"

"I would have you," he stressed, "deliver a message. The Union — or whoever else you work with — tell them what I did to those scientists. I want you to tell them what those scientists were doing. I want you to tell them who I _freed_. I want you, to go snivelling back to what-the-fuck-kind of hole you crawled out of, and tell everybody else that did _this—_ "

The man cocked up his head, showing his right side. The purple had grown furious, and it spread over more to the remaining side — staining his hair dark. He bucked up and stretched out his arms in a grand gesture.

"Tell everybody else that did this — that I am coming for them. And I won't _rrr_ est…until _every. Single. Last. One of them_ , end up like your friends," he spoke, "through that door."

The Union agent gasped in the open air suddenly, remembering to breathe.

"Go."

He coughed blood.

"Get out."

He spat on the rubble.

"GET OUT!"

The union member stumbled and ran. "…Who are you." He managed to speak out, heading towards the room of the dead again.

The man didn't hesitate to answer.

"Professor Frankenstein."

The hairs at the back of the union member's head pricked in unholy realisation. He ran.

* * *

Notes.

This is where the timeline gets fuzzy - I'm not too sure myself how much time Before Rai this was. Up to interpretation~

This chapter's title is alluding to Greek titan, Prometheus. Off of the title of _Frankenstein;or, The Modern Prometheus_. The story of Prometheus goes something like this: "Prometheus had a reputation of being a clever trickster. He famously gave the human race the gift of fire and the skill of metalwork - an action for which he was punished by Zeus, who ensured everyday that an eagle ate the liver of the Titan as he was helplessly chained to a rock. He also taught man how to use their gift and so the skill of metalwork began; he also came to be associated with science and culture."

Is this not low key Franken or what.

Also - peacocks. Everything associated with peacocks goes in line with Franken's personality, for some reason. Previous Lord is wise. And so is Laryna6, who found this.

* * *

I wrote up 'Mind Talk' for that tiny (and hilarious!) bit in the manhwa where Frankenstein is telling M-21 to calm it when trying to pick fights, and then Raizel is like, 'look who's talking, woah.' "The Clan leaders would come to me to complain." I died here.

Elims - I swear - when I copy paste a chapter in, something happens and the ends of words go missing...So have to go fix typos. Thanks to anybody who points them out and DO point them out I can't take it. Can...can we go back to the fluff? Um...I have some bad news for you, Elims, my friend...But I'm glad you liked the silent convo and stuff. Thank you for the review!

Laryna6 - honestly, thank you for pointing out the typos they really annoy me. Ugh. Yesss - Franken really really is trying, Rai. But hOW COULD HE NOT? 'Master, they just set themselves up to be sassed, don't you see?' I imagined that Rai must have felt like, that mildly embarrassed child with over-enthusiastic parents. 'Franken, its not like that.' 'Master, why do you still talk to them they're not good for you?'

TazzieLuv13 - Congrats, you're nominated~ Thank you for commenting. It made me laugh out loud.

Kaikouken - I'm so glad I could make you laugh with that last chapter XD XD Best feeling ever! (Multiple grammatically incorrect exclamation marks!) Yes - I was trying to play up Rai being an empath. It really takes a toll on him - to see all his old friends and feel what they feel. Because they're so uncomfortable around him. Raskreia and Frankenstein don't walk over egg shells around Rai. (Well...I guess Franken does in present time. But it's not totally the same. He's careful for Rai, and not for himself. he uses free range egg shells. I dunno.) And 'Franken has to pick up the pieces' - I agree. Franken is the one who does damage control after they've left. Despite everything, Franken ends up doing the exact thing to Rai, you're right. I've always internally screamed at the reveal where Rai is like "sorry...you've locked Dark Spear away for so long, now you have to go through your dreams again." I'm paraphrasing, but they never elaborate on this again and I ? So I fic it for you. 'No cookie,' omfg XD. The kids - poor kids. And poor Rai. As for Faust...I've got a couple more twists.

Also, another thing is, I think that if Rai legit died 820 years ago, Franken could have lived on. Sure, he would be distraught and it would suck, but he can live without him. I think it's that tiny sliver of hope the Rai is still alive that drives him crazy. It's the slight feeling of their bond every once in a while that keeps reminding and reminding Franken that Rai's gone and not dead. And that he possibly failed him. Or what if Rai dropped off the face of the earth on purpose? What if he deliberately left Franken without saying? What if he doesn't want to be found? What if he is dead and Franken's just feeling something residual? I'm a terrible person.

Thank you for reading and reviewing. I love you all.


	17. Call Me, Honey

**Disclaimer:** This has no affiliation with Noblesse. At all. I promise.

Sorry Kaikouken, but I posted this one unbeta-ed to give you a rest, lol. Please excuse dat bad grammar and wording, everybody...

* * *

 _"I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on."_

 _\- Mary Shelley's Frankenstein_

* * *

Call me, honey

Frankenstein jolted awake.

The wind coursed through his hair, tousling it wildly and stopping him from seeing, so he didn't see. It split over his skin as it hit him, weathering him down like Dark Spear did his sanity, so he let it. This place was cold and uncaring, soaked up him his image as he was cold and uncaring. It was as if he was stuck in a maze in his own mind, with his own parasites, built to stop him from leaving. So he didn't. Frankenstein couldn't go back home. Right now, he couldn't face them.

He needed to leave, find resources, hide out for a few weeks and watch over the house from afar. What about his old hideouts? How many of them were left? Or were all of them destroyed by now, in this age? Or did had he destroyed them all? Everything seemed fuzzy. Between his thoughts came another, tip toeing shyly, side stepping wryly, until centre stage swivelled and it was only him and it. _Wasn't this familiar?_ Running. Hiding. A heavy knot caught in his throat, and he stared blankly into the distance. Flecks of dark dots moved like mayflies near a lamplight. He was grateful to focus his eyes on them, far away, forgetting everything else for another last moment.

The island.

It'll be the obvious place for any of them to look, but that would still take time. Enough time for him to construct new measures while there. Frankenstein couldn't go back home. Right now, he couldn't face _him._ He needed to move fast — in the next four hours, the mind barrier would drop. And his master would know every fibre of shame entrenched in his bruised and beaten body. Every streak of loathing in his traitorous, fragile psyche.

The dots fluttered drearily in the distance. Frankenstein blinked his eyes, trying to get rid of them now. It was only when he snapped them shut and opened them to the side, that he realised he wasn't being delusional. He glowered at himself, shook a little to fully awake up before leaping off the floor to face the figures. The figures grew closer and closer. At this speed, in this state, he couldn't outrun them. Frankenstein's icy blues ripped back to the corpse again. It was cold now, Dark Spear's remnants made its victims unnaturally cold after death. Like the sweltering heat just burnt itself out and there wasn't a shred or tell-tale sign that they were ever alive. He traced his fingers over its body. Something seemed strange to him. He picked up the head by the scalp, untwisting the neck. Frankenstein gauged his hand into the nape. Skin and wires followed him out.

Information. Everybody was forever after it, after him, and this modified… _what the hell was this? Cyborg thing? Noble hybrid?_ That wasn't the point, it had been feeding information about the fight, about him, and this location.

And that meant—

 _"Frankenstein?"_

"Roctis, dear."

Frankenstein twirled the mass of flesh and wire in his hands, tossing it haphazardly behind him. "My — is this bring-your-psychopath-to-work day? _Why_ did I not get the memo? How are you, Ignes?"

"Much fonder to meet you than before." She curled forward, actually reaching out her pale hand. Frankenstein smiled. He looked Roctis straight in the eyes and took it, the gore in his hand squelching in hers. "I've read up on you, Frankenstein — you'll be proud to know, the Union holds your research in only the highest regard."

He grit his teeth like there was glass in his mouth, wishing it would cut him. _"Elated."_

The cavalry fanned out around Frankenstein, blocking him in a wall of disgrace. "Lunark, you too? Welcome," he greeted, dead body framing the view behind him, "And…who the hell are you?" Ninth elder was about to talk, but another man stepped forward. _Faust._ Frankenstein stretched his arms, rocking his neck from side to side in a lacklustre masquerade. His muscles were sore, and even this movement hurt. He couldn't possibly get away from them all.

"So have we hit a new low, Roctis? Sending half-sentient noble experiments to kill Master? Humans send a strongly worded letter for a formal declaration of _war_ , you know. Proper etiquette."

Roctis's coat flapped around him, but he was unmoved, unmovable.

It was the old man that spat first. He turned to Faust, ignoring Frankenstein. "As Ninth elder, I am wondering why your plan, Zeroth Elder-nim, has failed. At this rate, we still have to fight the Noblesse."

Lunark, proud werewolf, rolled her eyes at the man.

Frankenstein smirked, amusement squirming though his gut the way it only ever did for disgust. "Hn! Hnn-haha, _ahahahahahahahaha!_ I don't even know what to be ashamed about more — the fact that it was my research that started the damned Union, or the fact that the Union doesn't know a _human_ when it sees one." He chuckled into his hand, shaking violently, caught in a mania that was actually, honestly _hilarious._

"We're here for the Noblesse. What are you doing here?" Lunark asked, unamused.

Frankenstein willed himself to calm. " _Heheh_ — My apologies, but as you can see, the Noblesse is not here right now. May I take a message at the tone?" The chuckling stopped. Frankenstein disappeared. Dust flew where he stood. The group flinched in all directions. Frankenstein flounced inches close to the idiot, Ninth elder, leaving no time for a reaction. _"Beep,"_ he said, low and monotonous.

His fist, searing purple, shattered the Ninth elder's jawbone from under him, throwing his rag-dollish body far into the dust basin. Spider's legs sprouted from the Ninth's back. The man broke his fall cracking two of the eight legs. Frankenstein jerked back, evading Ignes's stab, and took a crack at her arm before leaping away. He got out of the enemies encirclement, them in front, pathetic Ninth elder lying at his back.

 _Comparing me to Master…revolting._

Now the spider's legs, still twitching, drew his attention. "…Alright. I take back what I said before. _Now_ I don't know what I'm ashamed of more. The Union, the Union believing _I'm_ the Noblesse, or, that guy's spider legs."

Frankenstein's eyes flickered up. Lunark was holding up a claw, showing blood trickle from them. Suddenly, his shoulder felt incredibly wet, and Frankenstein sneered at himself. He made it too easy. There was a certain degree to his carelessness; he should stop pushing his own limits. That sounded wholly ironic to him, he thought, lifting his brows.

 _"Professor."_

Red eyes widened at the word. Roctis paled at Faust. Faust didn't look at anyone, only Frankenstein.

"Professor Frankenstein, that was a flawed model I sent to murder the Noblesse after all. It seems that it didn't have the capacity to differentiate between strong powers." Or was it that he didn't account for the Noblesse to be so discernible in Frankenstein? Faust looked to the ground, frowning, before his amber eyes darted up again. "Forgive me. It shouldn't be you that's here."

Frankenstein shook off the tone of his voice. His eyes dimmed, narrowing down until they were thin, fiendish slits, and there was hardly any blue left in them. An insatiable thirst appeared. He was feeling around for Dark Spear; Dark spear who was singing in his blood. In his veins, he held a chorus of fallen, tainted beings who couldn't bless but only curse and they cursed him always. They blared louder and louder, their singing building to a symphony of screeching, splitting rejoice as Frankenstein was circled not by the hundreds from before, but by thousands — a million. They had to fight. Frankenstein felt the urge rip into him.

"Are we such a disappointment?" Frankenstein realised his slip, but didn't rush to correct it.

"Even with Dark Spear under your control, Professor, you can't escape us all," Faust said. Not a threat, a warning.

A _warning._

Roctis split his coat, revealing his muscular arms, flaunting power. Ignes followed his example. Lunark shifted her form, growing more wolfish by the second, Frankenstein's blood on her nails, drying. Faust stood still. "But we're not here for you," Faust said, feeling all eyes flit to his back. Faust dipped his head, scrunching the black, red-stitched mask onto his chest.

"Call him."

"No."

Frankenstein pulled a hand behind him, clenching and unclenching his still-bloodied hand, wondering now — can he come back from the fallen's grasp if he gifted himself over again?

 ** _You need us._**

They chattered excitedly over that thought, drowning him out.

"Call him, Professor."

"No."

His body would be his tomb, just as it had been _their_ tomb for centuries. The dead writhed awake, the way poppies woke on the battlefield. He felt them digging themselves up, digging themselves up. He felt them upturning the soil that he'd aways just finished burying in his sleep —but this was real. They could only die once so this wasn't their death.

"Professor, call Cadis Etrama di Raizel."

"Shut up," Frankenstein scoffed, letting his mind go cloudy as the sky mirrored inside him from above. Dark ozone crept over his body, over the sky and the sky in his eyes. "You shut your stitched up face — you don't get to say his name."

"Call Cadis.

"Etrama.

"Di.

 _"Raizel."_

Frankenstein twitched his head to the side. The Elders' readied their fangs, their strength surging. They could feel it too, the _anger_ rallying in the grey clouds ahead, lulling in agitation and rolling restlessly — bringing their wrath to this place of judgement. A rain was coming and no one could stop a rain.

"Call."

 _"…I'm sorry."_ Frankenstein's lips moved, but he couldn't hear himself through their cries. The one noble who always could, wouldn't hear him now. He turned his attention to another, speaking to the brimming audience with a voice meant only for himself. He gave them his word.

 _You can have me._

 ** _Yess._**

"Call, Professor Frankenstein."

Frankenstein smirked. "Have you ever considered he has better things to do than splash around in the rain with us?"

A drop of water broke on Faust's face, dripping down. Water wet the mask, making a darker splotch appear on one side. Almost immediately, the soft pitter patter of rain cascaded from the closing heavens, gates shutting as purgatory gathered and they were all thrust with warning, but not readiness, into a daytime-nightfall. The rain fell daintily, dotting the grounds in dark sediments until the patter turned into a roar. Each one became a crescendo to Frankenstein, drawing more and more frequent until he wasn't the only one hearing the voices in his head. The distance closed up, the crying souls arrived, flocking to Frankenstein in their garrisons. Dark Spear's voice resonated, the hordes of them gathered together in unison: grieving and celebrating — and they were the same thing, today.

Frankenstein was fulfilling their long held promise. Their last will and testimony thundered over them all; Faust, Roctis, Ignes and Lunark, were gripped by their song, ensnared by a storm.

Roctis stepped forward. His voice boomed in the wasteland, trying to be heard over Dark Spear. "DO IT, FRANKENSTEIN! CALL HIM! This is your death!"

"No? Nobody wants to consider? I can call, if you want, but the Noblesse is a busy man — let me put you on hold, should I?"

"FRANKENSTEIN!"

"NO! — Father—" Ignes turned, looking crazed, "I want to see it! I want to see his soul weapon! Frankenstein — summon it now! SHOW ME!"

Frankenstein smiled genuinely this time. This was, he knew, the last time. "Master's not coming anytime soon."

* * *

Rain tapped upon the window pane, trailing down in wobbling streams that ever slightly distorted the light. Through the glass, it gleamed and glittered. He looked at it, watched the water split on impact and sprinkle over every dry surface until there was no more. More and more pattered across the pane, scattering the clear image outside and filling his sight with haze. He let it fill him up with its tempo. Soft and loud, spitting and pouring, he noticed things about the rain that changed the world outside. Made things more lovely. He thought he might feel what kind of things the rain felt like. Sometimes a storm was ecstatic — made everything grow bigger and brighter afterwards. Sometimes it washed away the worst days to forget about. Sometimes, a drizzle was sad and listless. Coated the earth like a miasma. Rain made things more bearable.

And when it rained, he wouldn't hear anything else but the downpour. Water forming puddles and the beat hitting the ground. It was cold outside and he might sigh a little, see if his breath would dance and evade him. He scrunched his nose in were more colours here. More colours reflected in the raindrops that refracted onto the sill. Like spilt water colours. Yellows and reds and greens and blues. Why was there so much movement? He remembered why.

"Can you reach him?"

Traffic lights and rushing cars and letter boxes and house cats. The odd newspaper blowing by and a woman running in a raincoat. He saw it all. Much more lively and moving than anything he'd ever seen from the window of his mansion. Being in that mansion — it wasn't so long for him after all.

"Has he tried contacting you at all?"

A voice pulled him back to reality. He looked around him, turning away from the distraction.

"Have you checked?" M-21 asked again.

Raizel pulled a device out of his pocket, glancing down out of habit. The light was too harsh on his eyes and he didn't bother to adjust them. Even he knew it would be no use. The phone hadn't changed.

"…Through his mind, or his cellphone? Because he has closed both to me." Raizel frowned, frowned painfully. "This is very unlike him. Even if we…" His voice dissolved.

"Even if you fought?"

The entire household whipped their heads to strike Takeo. He parried daggers.

" _Dude_ …little insensitive?" Tao hissed.

"Raizel-nim," Takeo asked, "I'm sorry to have to ask you like this, but we need the truth. What happened between you and Frankenstein? Why did he just run off like that?"

Nobody moved a muscle, held down by the knife-sharp intensity. But no one spoke out against him. They needed to know.

M-21 looked up from his bandages. "Raizel-nim?"

"Look, maybe we're just overthinking this — the Principal is the Principal, he's not going to suddenly leave and—" Regis stopped in his tracks. "…What the heck is wrong with him? We have school tomorrow, for goodness sake! Who's going to run it? How inelegant of him…"

He turned to Seira, who was shaking her head at him. Regis squinted. "When do you think he's going to be done with that man?" he said with concern.

"Do you think…Frankenstein will come back?"

The room swivelled to face Raizel, different degrees of shock flitting through their faces.

"Sir, c'mon." Tao's voice was shaky under his joking veneer. He really wanted to seem normal, but nothing was, right now. "Boss is just taking down the Union at the mo — once he's done, we'll all leave and you guys can…um…talk about it?"

Tao's eyes snapped to the others. _Help,_ he mouthed.

"Frankenstein's not going anywhere, Raizel-nim," M-21 said so, boredly. "Give him a day. Three days, tops. Once he's cooled down. _Is he coming back_ — it's Frankenstein."

Raizel smiled weakly. "Do you really want to know why."

"Why he was so angered?" came Seira's patient voice. "I've - we've never seen the Chairman like that."

Raizel thought for a moment; no one wanted to break his concentration. He looked up, regarding at them all. "I can show you. If you would open your minds to me — just for this one time, I can show you."

"Yes," Takeo said.

M-21 nodded once. "Yes."

"Yea."

"Of course."

"I think it's best."

Raizel nodded back. "Alright. I'll show you."

Raizel's presence touched their thoughts, making Frankenstein's voice echo alive in their heads. They saw the scene play out and they were watching Frankenstein scream, Dark Spear spark at his fingertips, imagining slowly falling apart over eight centuries…

* * *

The grin under his loose hair crinkled, stretching out into a ghoulish smile that ate up the rest of his doubts. It was now or never. Frankenstein lifted an arm against the sky.

Roctis sprang forward, jerking an arm through the rain. When it reached in front of him, a black bull whip had materialised. "Cetus!" he summoned. The air around him funnelled, surging forward as he wielded his soul weapon to strike Frankenstein.

"FATHER!"

When moving that fast, everything else seemed like the world had slowed down. Roctis was in motion when a purple gleam dawned from the corner of his eye, reflecting like amethysts caught in mid-fall against the slowed raindrops. Then everything changed, the drops sizzled starkly into steam and the first of the arrow-like projectiles sped clean through his middle. Condensed lightning crackled on the ground before Roctis, blocking his path. The moment passed and he saw his own blood dwindle away, lapped up without a drop to waste by the projectile.

 _"Guh—"_

 _"The sky!"_ Ignes called.

He looked up. Amid the thick rain the skies were botched with the purple trailing tails of a meteorite shower. Spear head by spear head landed, breaking the Union elders apart and stabbing around Frankenstein. As if they were rushing to protect him. Roctis evaded a second projectile, and then another, and another. But not a fourth. Cetus flung more away from him, but the closer he got to Frankenstein, the more frantic the knives fell.

 ** _Professorr._**

Thunder echoed across the skies. The storm clouds brewed to a boiling point — stirring around, and around, and around. Something of a black hole opened it's mouth, baring its teeth of lightning.

Ignes's face ripped into a deranged grin. She gaped, eager for the storm to go on.

Lunark whipped around to find Faust, head raised, watching the toiling clouds. There was an awe on his face, like a little child stuck looking at tree lights for the first time. And he'd never seen anything so enthralling.

"Zeroth Elder?!" She called out, chilled by the rain despite the strange sort of heat, "what are you doing? Are we to fight? He's not calling him — you told us you could get him!" Faust only stared, caught in the centre of the storm without response. Dark projectiles fell next to him. He didn't flinch a muscle.

 _"Faust?!"_ Lunark gritted out. _"What do we do? Faust?! Elder!"_

"What _do_ we do?" mimicked Frankenstein, "That's a trying question, Lunark," he said abruptly, matching her panic. "Let me use a lifeline — _ask the audience…fifty: fifty…_ No. I'd like to call a friend."

Lunark sneered though the maze of jutting projectiles.

"IGNES! Get back! Right now!"

"Father we—"

 _"Professor…"_

 ** _"Answer,"_** Frankenstein said, **_"my call,_**

 ** _"love."_**

* * *

Notes.

 _' "Beep," he said, low and monotonous '_ is easily the worst line I've ever written. Enjoy. _(It's such a dry joke I didn't know how to replace it.)_

Current feels: When I go through all those Sad Shelley quotes to find the most fitting one...(for both Rai and Franken. Ah.)

Sometimes when I copy-paste the fic onto the site, I feel like a word or two goes missing after I go 'save'...If you see this problem please contact me asap and get me to fix it lol. I don't stare at this going crosseyed for a typo to come up ahhhhhhh. Thank you.

Hi qdeanna, Laryna6, Kai, ColdApril, Elims, TazzieLuv13, Madame aZure and everyone! I know it's been forever, but expect next update to be much sooner. A couple of companion pieces for this fic are going to come out later too - if you're interested.

Thanks for your support :D


	18. Deep Water

_Thanks to Kaikouken~_

* * *

 _"You can have me."_

 ** _Yess._**

 _"Take me. But….let me see Faust die. Please let me see."_

 ** _…You will be conscious._**

 ** _We allow you this…_**

* * *

Deep Water

Dark Spear is water — deep water. Dark spear wraps itself around you, enclosing your body, ensnaring your mind, and you can't breathe. You are drowning. Always drowning, falling deeper and deeper into their ever-spreading, never-ending, abyss. Amid a vengeful, vicious sea, Dark Spear is black water.

When you fall into their clutches, you can only sink. Like being held under the waves, Dark spear touches everywhere and changes everything, and you want to breathe — you need to breathe. When you gasp for breath, for life, you suffocate as you inhale Dark spear. They're inside. They're all around. They become you, and you become them. It's enticing, you are the charmer but the snake has charmed you.

When you move, you can feel the thick pressure quashing; you can grapple with them, try to struggle. Like being buried alive and held down six feet under — getting dragged lower and farther, until you land in their hell.

Dark spear is boundless and you are a lonesome speck in their ocean. They are landless; you drift there, alone yet never left alone under the sea. One day, you know, you will be rested here too. Here, under the deep, black sea.

You feel their hate, and you hate what they hate, and they—

They, hate you.

Dark spear is deep water.

* * *

The soundlessness of it was as piercing as anything — a cut, a roar, a toppling wave. Dithering and empty, the dissociation between sight and sound was like a rip in reality, confusing all.

There was just no sound.

The fallen spasmed down, ripping even the air asunder. It happened in less than a second, than a mere blink of the eye, lesser than it took for a pupil to dilate. Frankenstein was holding lightning. It flickered, lightning and black flames whirling around in a vortex before it merged, forging death into the form of a double-bladed spear. The sheer silence of such a dark manifestation was eerie and wrong — everybody noticed it, stark as day. Seconds ticked by and then, the deafening barrage of thunder finally followed behind. It echoed above Frankenstein, reverberating all the way into the far, far distance, blaring in that too-familiar chorus of Frankenstein's headspace.

"Dark Spear," he greeted.

Immediately, his skin ignited at his words, and he went straight from disease-ridden flesh to hellfire burning. The black flames lurched up, engulfing his arms, his shoulders, and he let it, shook them up with a toss of his head and a wrench of his muscles.

"Meet my friends, Ignes. What should we do then? What should we do, we need to give the lady an answer," he pondered, voice growing grisly. "Oh — _Uhuh._ Kill everyone here? Ignes, your answer — _we're going to kill every single one of you here._ "

 _Including me._

He'd already summoned Dark Spear to deal with the first Union puppet. He'd undergone partial possession. He'd promised himself to Dark Spear — this was the decisive fight. Roctis, Ignes, Lunark and Faust. Four birds with one stone, and he'll die accomplished. He'd die atoned.

Roctis flinched, eyes trailing from the war torn skies to the stabbed-up ground. Frankenstein watched him. With a wave of his taloned hand, he dispersed the grave of projectiles dug into the field. Roctis narrowed his eyes. His wounds had healed over in inhuman — _in-noble_ , speed, and his soul weapon glowed red. Ready to kill. His speech raked off the tip of his tongue.

"You continued to experiment with Dark Spear? Even under _him?_ Do you have any shame left to spare?" He coiled up the way a deadly snake did, eyeing its prey before it pounced. "Your… _soul weapon imitation,_ I've seen it. I know it well! Dark Spear was never this strong. You betrayed him like us all the same."

 _"Me?"_ Frankenstein bared his teeth, and Lunark could swear they'd grown pointed. But Dark Spear chattered happily alongside him. **_Ehehehehh — finally, Frankenstein — we did betray him in the end. Just like we wanted. He's righhht._**

 ** _You_ left _him._**

"Can't you just accept the fact that I was stronger than you from the beginning?" Frankenstein said.

Roctis's lips tightened into a thin, gaunt line.

"…Alright. Come closer, I'll let you all in on a _secret."_

Nobody moved.

"Everybody loves secrets."

Faust stepped forward, moving easily in front of Roctis, waving him back. When Roctis pulled forward again, Faust silenced him with a look. Frankenstein couldn't see his turned face, but Roctis begrudgingly backed down. "Zeroth Elder," he acknowledged.

Faust ignored him. "Enlighten me then, Professor," Faust asked honestly.

"I don't control Dark Spear, per se. They do as they please. What pleases them to do is to bathe the blood of their enemies." Frankenstein smiled. He flipped Dark Spear in his burning arms as if they were weightless. Faust doubted that. How heavy would it be — to carry _souls_ in your hands? In your head?

For entire centuries?

"I'm simply their humble guide, and as such, Roctis," he slurred on, "I can choose how many of them to summon. When I was younger, more naive, I could hold onto what? A couple hundred of them?"

Faust's eyes widened, understanding something before they relaxed again.

"With seven thousand, eight thousand of them…I was kidnapping nobles with a mere couple thousand souls. With Urokai Agvain and all the _numbwits_ — I can summon Dark Spear's physical form with…hundreds of thousands of souls?"

Ignes's eyes grew as wide as saucers, her wry grin wavering and twisting. _"You can summon more?"_

Frankenstein looked at the spear. "How many people do you think the Union killed to create this?"

"Millions," Faust answered.

Frankenstein's voice was quiet now. "They managed to cram generations into Dark Spear." He lifted the tainted soul weapon, hunching over into a battle stance. Even the Union members could see Dark Spear's flames licking up in anticipation, making Frankenstein shudder from the intensity.

"Six zeros. One thousand, times one thousand, makes only a million _._ I don't know how many lost their lives to create Dark Spear." Frankenstein lifted his head. Smile as toxic as arsenic, his voice boomed across the grounds. "It's a party, today. And everyone's invited."

"How are you still sane?" Roctis spat. He didn't bother to cover the disgust in his voice.

"…I'm not."

Frankenstein lurched forward, greed in his shadowy eyes. Roctis saw they were no longer blue, blue pools, but agitated lilacs growing darker every moment. Cetus, the bull whip, slashed at Frankenstein, but Dark Spear wrung it back easily. Roctis hit back, dragging his body past Frankenstein as he curled his whip around his neck. Roctis lunged to snap it. Frankenstein retched once. Wind gave away Frankenstein's attack as sharpened projectiles plummeted onto Cetus, criss crossing over its thin form. Enough to unbalance Roctis. Frankenstein wrangled free and sent a slice through the whip, then at Roctis. Cetus broke apart smokily before mending, but Roctis was thrown back. A gash opened on his chest. He groaned, involuntarily clutching at it before flicking away his blood. _"Frankenstein…"_

"TRANSFORM! FATHER!" Ignes's voice rang over the terrain. "TRANSFORM!"

"Yeah Roctis, listen to your psychopath, throw everything you've got at me."

Ignes whirled around, Frankenstein's voice prickling her neck. _"Hnghh!"_ She struck him, but it was meaningless. Dark Spear swung up, then stabbed down.

"Lunark?!"

"If you can transform then _transform-the-hell-up!"_ Lunark took him on, her claws against Frankenstein's talons and Dark Spear's spitting flames. They took a hold of each other, fumbling into the air and striking non-stop, leaving no time to think. Lunark gasped, ducking to see Roctis charge behind Frankenstein. Her expression gave them away.

"God — you _feel_ ugly, Roctis." Frankenstein swivelled to meet Cetus's hilts again, and Roctis beat them forward, neither one making progress over the other. Finally, Frankenstein peered over his knuckles. A look of amusement fell on his face. "No wonder it smells of _hypocrisy_ — the right unhonourable Roctis Kravei has enhanced himself?"

"You're not the only one who can enhance their powers. You're old news, Frankenstein." He took his wrist with his bare, bulging arms, and simply pulled him from the air. "Last Millennia," he scoffed to himself. "Last Lordship."

"KUH—" Frankenstein plummeted into the ground. He curled up from the dust, coughing dirt out of his mouth. Frankenstein wavered, raising himself to his feet only to be suddenly snagged down into the earth again. _What?_ Six pointed spears stuck into his back. _"Spider legs,"_ he muttered in slight inconvenience.

"You, damned Noblesse or not, _die._ "

That did it. Frankenstein got up and with one swing, chopped all of the Ninth elder's spider legs off. His cry made Dark Spear jingle. This time, Frankenstein bubbled with laughter in unison. _"Ehehe,_ I'd say you all deserve better than him. But, go."

He swung up Dark Spear like a javelin, propelling them to Ninth elder. Dark spear enshrouded his shaking, bleeding form.

 _"What is it — what is it doing? What did you do?! AH—"_ Dark Spear funnelled around him. Frankenstein launched himself back into the sky, satisfied.

"It's beautiful, you know."

He tipped back, evading Ignes's aura-ridden kick. "Your soul weapon, it's so…perky! I like it."

Lunark appeared alongside her. Ignes looked disgruntled for a brief moment, as if the werewolf were something as disgusting as muck on her shoe, below her, but then she flitted to corner Frankenstein's other side.

"Disappointments galore," Frankenstein tut-tutted.

Lunark was strong. Frankenstein turned to her, parrying her blows and kicking her centre. But he was taking damage rampantly. Ignes was sending energy blasts into his back like she was trigger happy off the hits. Frankenstein dropped downwards, suddenly, grabbing Lunark by the ankle only to turn around to find Roctis. He kicked off his hold on her and gripped Frankenstein's purple stained neck. Roctis didn't grin. He savoured his victory in silence, feeling the life slip out of his fingers, feeling the rest of Frankenstein's humanity squeeze out of his hand. Roctis didn't speak as he watched Frankenstein twitch.

 _"Keuughhh—"_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Master, I'm dying._

* * *

He hoped he could die as a martyr. Back then when he was running, his enemies turned everyone he cared about against him. He couldn't even die a martyr. There was nothing good of an example in him. Made of manslaughters, he couldn't even die right.

But now he could. He promised from the beginning, his soul was Dark Spear's. When there were no men left to call out: Murder! Dark Spear didn't shy. They counted his sins and counted his breaths: divided him up — who gets what, who gets which — for when the end came. And the end was now. They sang. A vocalisation, terrorisation serenade to welcome Frankenstein — their Monster-god, finally repenting all their sins! Their lonesome hero, their dragon-slayer, knight of hell; he was coming with them to their shared, eternal damnation.

Under all their bottomless hatred, somewhere, Dark Spear quietly loved Frankenstein.

* * *

 ** _More, Professor Frankensstein…you need more._**

Frankenstein recoiled.

 _I need to stay conscious. Conscious enough to…enough to kill….._

 ** _We curse you…we curse you…and we help you curse him — Faust._**

Frankenstein stopped gasping, all of a sudden. His neck straightened in Roctis's hold and he stared into his red eyes. Roctis flinched. Outwardly, he flinched, and frankenstein's lips curled into a thin smile.

 ** _Ring around the rosies,_**

 ** _A pocket full of posies..._**

"Bubonic and Pneumonic plague."

Dark Spear had many forms. Some parts were split into claws, some into energy and the haze in the air. Some of it brewed in the storm in the sky and came down as lightning strikes, and a spear. And now they all rushed forward, without reservations, without restriction, collecting into Frankenstein as he called. His face contorted, purple veins crawling under skin and meeting at the ebbs — splitting his face up like a veiny mosaic — and he really did look like that monster on that book. The ones who dropped dead with disease, he invited now, infecting him with their poisons.

 ** _More._**

"Carolingian Civil War."

Purple flocked under his skin. The ones with flags draped over their bodies, heads left on pikes and filled ditches, painted his skin over like they were once painted in blood.

 ** _More_**.

"The Saxon wars."

Broken swords, broken armour and broken promises filled his head, and right now, he would fulfil his promise to them. He will give the promised bloodshed — theirs, his, and Roctis's.

"The Second Crusade, the Guang Zhou massacres, Typhoid pandemic, Small pox epidemic.."

 ** _We need more!_**

"The mutant massacres!"

Frankenstein's body began to tremble. He was a flesh-cage. A vessel brimming at the seams with the red-hot violence of long-undead men, women, children. They were Dark Spear. They swallowed him in a rolling sea of grief and corpses — sons without mothers and children without childhoods; daughters without voices and women with no weapons; men doomed to serfdom and knights left with no lieges — they were poor and hopeless, hapless. Famous and infamous heroes and villains were lain together inside his bones, in the crevices of his brain; and every single one of them, a puppet with cut strings that he'd cut free himself. They were excruciating to behold and agonising to besmirch and he was never sure who was really marring who; did he make Dark Spear foul or did Dark Spear make him a hell?

His eyes were no longer his, not just his, and they were a pair of toothy grins in dark abysses, inky liquid taking over the mauve irises and Frankenstein was alive! Alive with them, as them, he was all of them and none of them at once — built up block by block the same time he was collapsing chip by chip and they were all, alive again.

Alive, in all the wrongest ways.

And Frankenstein, in this moment, could never hate Roctis more. Frankenstein's claws pierced straight into his heart.

 _"You_ — _"_ Roctis gasped.

Roctis's hand was still gripped deathly tight on his throat, but he couldn't crush it. Frankenstein didn't need to breathe air anymore, his blood flowed violet and he gorged on razor fanged angels. His own sirens allured him from within, he stepped voluntarily into their quicksand, ready to fill his lungs with sawdust made of bone. He ran on pure soul power, and he could damage so much, blazing trails to death. He'd made peace with them all and they'd come to laugh and mourn; Frankenstein was his own funeral pyre.

* * *

Roctis willed Cetus to wrap onto his outstretched arm, and they singed into the purple flames, extinguishing Frankenstein's skin. But when it pulled away hoping to pain him, he was charred black and Frankenstein…

 _Was this still Frankenstein?_

Roctis blanched and his clenched, white knuckles hit stone-set jaw. But now, his open chest wound was closing, knitting together with Frankenstein's — Dark Spear's — _this Monster's_ talons still wrapped around his beating heart. If he could talk, he wondered what he'd say. If Frankenstein could still voice another word, Roctis wondered what he'd say to him.

 _The humans' war has stretched to the northern mountains?_

Roctis's eyes blinked wide.

 _Thank you for your news._

He saw Ignes jolt and thrust a transformed arm into the Monster's back, and he wanted to yell at her to _run._ Lunark sprang forward beside her, plunging her claws into his centre and then scarring his back with rips and claw marks, but he didn't so much as break his stare.

 _How dare you betray Master?_

Roctis was lost in his eyes, seeing the millions of fallen humans laugh in the face of his everything. And he realised, in a short, short moment, that what those humans said — those humans from long ago, when they talked of the Devil, Lucifer or Satan — they were telling the truth. With a blink of an eye, he understood why Cadis Etrama di Raizel could never stand by while innocent humans died by noble hands.

With one sick wrench, the Monster tugged Roctis's heart clean from his chest.

* * *

"AAAAHHHHHHHH—FATHER!" Ignes blew another beam at Frankenstien. He evaded easily. If he hadn't evaded easily, it wouldn't have made a difference. Lunark was strong, she'd tangoed with this before…but _millions_ of souls possessing Frankenstein? She wasn't that suicidal. She wasn't that dense either.

 _Frankenstein will die._

There was no more need to do this. The Fourth Elder was dead and she needed to report this back to the Second.

"Ignes! Fall back. We're done."

 _"…Cetus."_ If any grief touched her face, it was gone the millisecond the thought of the Kravei Clan's soul weapon came to mind. It was like she couldn't comprehend what had just happened, but she held that thought hostage, _Cetus was hers._ Lunark guided her down.

"He's done it himself, Zero Elder," Lunark spat. "When he's dead the Noblesse will come. We need to fall back and gather every force in the Union! The First and Second Elders' will hear of this, the Fourth's death is on you. Fall back! Fall back before he's done sucking up every inch of Roctis up there!"

Faust simply turned to her, amusement playing in his eyes — what an _oversight, she didn't even mention poor, old Ninth Elder._

"No."

 _"No?"_ Red flashed in Lunark's mind. Gripped in an anger that couldn't be pushed down, she turned on Faust. "Even with your so-called title, 'Zeroth Elder,' you've overstepped your boundaries, _Sir._ This is a loss. It's a straight defeat!"

"It's a miracle," Faust answered airily, as if somewhere in the castle on the clouds in his head, he was admiring the hellscape unfolding around him.

 _"Faust?—"_

Ignes leapt in front of Faust before Lunark could tear into him. Lunark looked about ready to shiver with rage, but Ignes stopped her, turning to Faust.

"You can still do this, right?" Ignes asked. "We take down his bonded and the Noblesse will come here."

Faust tugged on his mask, fixing it straighter.

He made up his mind.

"That's what I bought you here to do, dear."

* * *

Notes.

I'm getting more and more self conscious about posting for some reason. The first section, ugh, I had so much trouble deciding which tense to do and it sounded, like, different doing it in one or the other. Sorry, I held onto this one for a bit too long. Hope this chapter was ok. And then SO MANY LINE BREAKS FOR THEM POV'S.

So, when I first wrote this, I researched the historical moments (post 795 AD-ish) that Franken listed and the death tolls of each. I chose the most significant ones and the most relevant sounding ones, didn't write them down, and now I don't remember why I picked them. And I added Bubonic plague way before it's time because it's much more famous than the other. But I imagine that it wasn't every single one of those victims that were stuffed into Dark Spear. They got bits and pieces and made it culminate. It wasn't a neat project and that was why the Union had to doctor a heap of incidents to keep collecting souls etc.

Tazzieluv13 - I'm still trying to decide when's the best time to post. Like, what time in terms making it sort of match up with this fic too...

Elims - holey moley you're sharp! Definitely more info coming up and the next chapters will answer those q's. Thank you and ooooohh it's not looking pretty, going forward. But yep, fear not, the ending isn't going to be grimdark tragedy. 3

Mugiwara Otome - Thanks, ahhh I'm so glad

Thecrowbutterfly - Heya! - I know this fic is really strange because I bought back Roctis, and the events of the Ragus/ Lagus invading Lukedonia arc hasn't happened yet. A couple of other things are probably going to raise your brows about the timeline so...don't worry about all those technicalities I guess? XD AU! But yes, I imagine Rai has already told Franken his super short version of how he got to sleep - fighting Muzaka. Love to hear what you think, thanks.

The Midnight Cat of the Dark - Awesome, thanks for reading :D

Laryna6 - "How Roctis and Faust are both concerned about Franken's welfare, but have so very different ideas of what's the actual danger to him." I did not think about it that hard but oh! You're right! I know it's all sad and terrible...but when I was writing that down I was like, thinking, 'Rai had a fight and proceeds to show group chat what went down so they could all overanalyse and help.' Ehehe.

brissygirl - :D

next time: Dun. DUn. DUNN.


	19. And Everything Fickle

Many thanks to the beta for this chapter - brissygirl

And Kaikouken, don't sweat it! Betaing is hard and takes forever.

* * *

And everything fickle.

"Isn't it too early for it to be…so dark?"

"Hn?"

"Shinwoo! Look outside."

Shinwoo turned his head. "What are you talking about? It's raining."

"Yeah but," Ikhan scrunched the curtains back, _"look."_

In the far, far distance, blurred under the frosty window pane, a shadowy something beamed from the sky. _Lightning?_ Thunder boomed in a sunken bass that rumbled beneath their feet, and they felt the house around them rattle. A glass of orange juice splashed over the table.

"Dang it!"

This was the strangest storm Shinwoo had ever encountered.

"Hey," came Ikhan's voice again, "I'm going to call Yuna and Suyi's house, make sure they're Ok. Like, indoors. And then everybody at the principal's."

"Yeah. You call the girls', I'll check on Rai and stuff."

They grabbed for their phones as juice dripped off the table, soaking orange into the carpet.

* * *

Faust lifted a hand. Ignes's hair darted in wisps as each of Faust's faceless weapons took to the sky from beside her. Roctis was gone and there was no body to fall. The weapons hovered, circling the Monster as he radiated anger. The weapons began to morph, shaping their hands into blades. With a blink from Faust, they launched towards the Monster, coming at him head on from all directions.

"Zeroth Elder?" Lunark asked, claws still at the ready.

"Yep. Just wait. I bought those here to tire the enemy out. He'll be done with them shortly, and then it'll be your turns again."

"You want us to fight him?"

Faust pricked up his brows. "I want you to distract him."

Ignes nodded. Lunark begrudgingly did so too.

Then a faceless weapon landed head first into the dirt before them.

"…I'm going." Ignes leapt into the battle, "I like my chances better when he's fighting all of us at once. Lunark!"

Lunark grimaced and followed behind her. "Faust. I hope you're right about whatever you're doing."

"I am, Lunark."

"Tch."

Faust watched them glide across the sooty skies, making the rain buzz with their energies, and invoke shockwaves that blew his clothes and mask behind him. He watched them fight: the Monster propelling the spear into the heads of his carefully designed weapon-men, the weapons pooling their energy blasts together in one hopeless strike, and then Lunark and Ignes taking him on in midair.

They couldn't dodge forever, and it was getting harder and harder to land hits on him — if it even mattered — the Monster didn't try to evade them. Their attacks were embraced by his burning form, and the inferno in the air could be seen even from where Faust stood. The atmosphere was wonky, transparent waves like a desert mirage distorting the horizon in the far distance. But it was wet all around the Monster, and dry right up to him. Rain sizzled into steam where it fell too close, and Lunark had to flinch back each time her claw scraped his body. Long distance attacks dragged past his form, but the Monster still forged on.

The Monster bounded forward: calculating the distance between him and the grounded Faust, the slope of the battle-damaged ground he was on, and how to splat his face against it without making it _too easy._

Faust was touched when Ignes fixed her jaw to call out to him.

"Faust?!"

Faust jerked his head to the right. Dark Spear thrust into the place where his head used to be. He felt the sweltering weapon displace the molecules near his ear. He found he was short of breath for moment, but he was still able to evade. It was getting too close — far closer than the last time they levelled a construction site, but if Faust was going to do this, he needed to take chances. Frankenstein under that seal was an irritating constraint. Frankenstein with Dark Spear was a strain on his body. These were facts that he knew and depended on.

Faust slipped under the spear head and spun. Using the centrifugal force of the movement, he heaved his own aura to a fist. The Monster didn't care to dodge and couldn't, from this distance. Faust's beam was thrust into his side. For just for a moment, he caught the modest glimpse of shock over his face, and then a smile shaking across it. Dangerous and staggery, like a ravine opening up. Though the Monster couldn't see it, couldn't quite put a finger on it, he could probably feel it.

"Even Dark Spear can tell? And you can't?"

Ignes and Lunark charged again. Faust fired a stray blast to his side, catching their attention. He waved them back and they didn't advance. Then, in a moment of focus, Faust folded his arms to his centre. Gold aura immediately radiated from his body, and he was glowing with it. Bright and glaring, Ignes and Lunark looked away. The Monster propelled himself forward, spear raised above his head.

"Don't be so dense, Professor."

 ** _Make it rain._**

Faust looked up. Another legion of purple-tipped javelins hailed down. Faust sent up a hand, shielding himself with a flare of gold. His aura caught four javelins, five, but the shield burst open on the sixth. He wrenched his body to and fro, twisting in grotesque fashions to miss each flailing bolt. Faust shuddered as the last one fell too close, blocking his way. He looked around, enclosed by their heat wave. There was no way to evade them all, and within the second's notice, he clamped a hand around one of the bolts stuck in the ground and used it to swing his body away from the next falling set. Burns seared across his hand and he yanked it back, dragging it in the dirt to cool it.

 ** _Make him dance._**

Faust turned his attention immediately back to the enemy. The Monster had vanished. Purple slunk into the corner of his eyes and Faust braced for the attack. The Monster's barrage of strikes was thrown in such quick succession that the blackish-purple blurred into an illogical mass; each movement looked like a ragged fling but it wasn't as berserk as it seemed.

"I think Dark Spear knew from the beginning. The very beginning. From the night I met you in your school office."

Each attack was deliberate, yet erratic. The spear jabs were precise, no matter how recklessly they were slung out, kicks and knee-ins heavy yet focused, and he didn't leave time to counter. The Monster's mouth was open and gaping, though no sound came from him.

"Don't you remember?"

* * *

He didn't speak, he didn't utter or yelp or even blurt out a battle cry — he didn't need to. Violence was his language, and he was more fluent in this mother tongue than any other dialect of his that had long since fallen out of existence. Just like everything else he had ever laid eyes upon. His fight-mongering conveyed more than words ever could. He didn't heed anything, no warnings or rules or orders to command him here, keep him tame, keep him sane; he was a wayward fighter on a wayward fling.

He came at his enemy with death in his heart; he'd accepted it, made what peace a monster-man like he could make; and the souls in his eyes, they came with a desire to destruct. He humoured them now, and humoured himself.

An oasis of malcontent, fiendish spite and urging vengeance, and he was still so starved, so deprived, fighting to get everything he thought they all deserved right now. He won't be cheated of this.

Sometimes, he wished the humans could decide on the face of their monster — he was sick of being made up of stitched up pieces of rotting tales: a little bit of Prometheus, a slight pinch of mad scientist, a dollop of occult doctor; couldn't they just decide, was he the devil or did he work for the devil? He was a Frankenstein's monster of Frankenstein's Monster.

Cherishing the feeling of teeth ripping flesh, cheering for the feeling of bone blocking bone, bone smashing bone, he wanted tragedy — but not just anyone's — just Faust's. One thing kept him going: he just wanted Faust to hurt.

* * *

"Be ready, Ignes, Lunark!"

The Monster lunged forward again, but Faust took hold of his wrist, diverting a black beam into the sky.

"I'm speaking to Dark Spear now," Faust announced.

The spear pushed Faust to the side. He blocked, hearing skin smother as he skidded to a stop. His or the Monsters? He couldn't tell. Faust opened his mouth, telling the tale:

"Once, he was running. Always running, not from people but for people. But it didn't make a difference to them."

Shadowy projections rained down again and he darted around them.

"Humanity, they'd forgotten that he was one of them."

The spear slashed past his left side, opening a wide cleft in the ground. Earth splintered around him. The ground shivered under Dark Spear's cut, and Faust bent to steady himself.

"And he feared the day their taunts became true, he would forget that he was one of them."

The Monster flung himself into the sky.

"When he was miles away and worlds apart, he stopped running, stopped hiding, and stopped caring. He became the madman they wanted to pursue, so that it was only ever him that they pursued."

Black, black projections burst from the Monster's body, all aimed at Faust. Faust rocked backwards and forwards, but a dark extension stabbed though a leg. He clenched his eyes shut. Gold aura burst from his wound.

" _Urgh._ But…the hunted turned around and became the hunter. He was the only one bright enough to know what he was. Humanity's Kingpin. _"_

Another needle tip pierced his back and broke into the open to the other side. Pain coursed through his body. Faust could feel his own organs singe around the projection before another, and another, evened out the pain. Blood sizzled under the rods, but not a drop of vapour escaped into the air. The black rods lapped it up.

"Everything… _goes to hell_ …because he gave up everything…to be at the side of that — _noble."_

The fall and rise of his chest quickened around the foreign projections. His power began to gloop and cloy, sucked away by Dark Spear. Oh a whim, Faust opened himself to them. Gold power flowed free, tantalising Dark Spear, and it's flare botched and melted as it became theirs.

"It's funny, isn't it? It's hilarious," Faust grinned, craning his neck to see the Monster. Everything depended on this finale. "You like my aura, don't you? You remember it's taste."

Faust surged forth his power, wrapping it around him like a gift and offering it to Dark Spear. His power left him like nectar, his strength wilted like a flower and his breathing beginning to wane. He coughs, lingering a moment before he straightened.

"I didn't lie to you at all, you know. Cadis Etrama di Raizel will die. I promise you this. Because _I_ will kill Cadis Etrama di Raizel. Would you care to join me, Dark Spear?"

Their talons unhooked.

The dark projections retreated, circulating in muddled coils until they bled back into the spear shape, and then Dark Spear bled into the Monster. He absorbed the weapon. Whether on purpose or not, Faust didn't know.

The Monster hovered. He just hovered.

Then after an eternity passed by a minute, he spasmed. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Monster began to thrash and twitch and jerk, pair of hands running all over his body in strange lengths and sinking claw marks over it. Teeth gnashing, purple deepening and all scalding-hot agony, he combed his claws over his scalp, drawing black blood and fire. When he spat his mouth open to scream, nothing came out.

He was armed, harmed and dangerous, a cataclysmic upheaval all trapped within his flesh. But his bones cracked and his muscles popped and his confines broke loose — too slow to mend in time and Dark Spear flooded out and in control. Faust blinked up, shock flitting over his eyes. In one great hurl, the Monster plummeted himself to the ground. A crater rocked the earth.

Faust skidded down to greet him. His eyes widened with more surprise. The thing was scrunched over, knees up to his chin. It was a macabre sight: his arms were over its head, hunched, lean form trembling like crazy. Something pinched and twinged in Faust's own chest. It hurt to look. He caught himself almost wanting to rage and scream at him, but he didn't. Faust shook himself and hardened his resolve. Gold energy surged to his fist and he struck the Monster, sending him out of the crater. The Monster skidded, dragging scorch marks in the ground until he slid to a final stop. Faust appeared before him immediately. He clenched his hands into fists again.

"Ignes."

"Here, Faust. It's ready." Ignes motioned to the side. Lunark stared idly, unsure exactly why or how the fight had ended, if it had even ended, as Faust pulled the twitching Monster into the centre of a sigil. A pentagram was finished with a circular border, painted with Ignes's blood. She stepped well out of it's reach.

Lunark did the same. "What is he going to do to him?"

"Just watch," Ignes said, eyes twinkling.

Faust trailed around the Monster before lifting the back of his shoulders to lean on his knees. Gold immediately flared from him again, but this time, Ignes and Lunark couldn't afford to look away.

Faust bent down and said into the Monster's ear, "I knew you couldn't resist the taste of my power, Dark Spear. I'll give it all to you, willingly. You will fight as often as you please. The Noblesse will die by my hand. Isn't that everything you want, now?" Faust paused, sighing ruefully. "Many people in this world hate him, but it's just you and me that hate him most on this earth. You have my word, Dark Spear."

The Monster looked up, and through a million damned souls, only one reached out. Faust smiled at him. The malice in his voice didn't quite reach his eyes. "This is going to hurt, Professor Frankenstein."

He touched his hand to his forehead.

 _"Venit."_

 _Come._

The walls of the Monster's mind ripped from the seams.

Now Faust gauged his left hand into the back of his throat, spread his right fingers to touch into his ghost-flowing eyes.

The Monster stretched open his mouth, wanting to make a sound.

* * *

Slowly, uncannily, Dark Spear bled from the Monster into Faust. All his senses were hit with a sharp, stinging sensation that took hold of his very being. Under his fingernails, behind his eyelids, all he could see and feel were the wretched and wronged. And for the first time in a long time, he could converse with the people of his own era.

Their close-knit, ragtag mayhem compacted into a gruesome illness, scaling up his back. They still gushed on. They grappled over one another, cannibalistic, their darkness emblazoning themselves into his every figment of every half-thought. Mind, body and soul touched down into the outskirts of sanity. They flooded their new vessel, delving down with their probing fingers and performing neurone surgery. They wanted to know him and every cell he was made of. He recognised a smell— the smell of smouldering something — flesh or hair or blood or bone, and he wondered if it was his, or theirs, _maybe both._ They felt lurid in their colourlessness, but then there was still that garish purple, silhouetting the blackness so that their form was visible to his eyes, and he wasn't just looking into nothing when he furled his hands in front to see. Talons glared back at him, as sharp and deadly as sabres.

His aura flowed dark. It was a tactic for him to flare his light. His enemies were blinded by it's brilliance: a dangerous deep sea, angler-fish-like predator. But now, he could still do the same with Dark Spear, only he'd blind his enemies in blackness. They pooled to his hand, oozing from the ends to reforge the double-bladed spear. The last murky gold melded into the weapon. There was no other word for it — it was a tainting.

He could never produce another bright spark again.

Faust was both energised and sedated, head blaring between highs and lows, and lows and highs, and going between many of them in too little a time. Electricity pounded through him, and he could feel Dark Spear encasing his heart, seeping into what lied within it. His body didn't tick in the same way as before. He felt trills and thrills, a quavering, vibratory sound, launched far past electrocution. Three hundred miles per hour jumping on the surface of his skin, and he understood why Frankenstein didn't flinch when Lunark or Ignes put a scratch on him, put a hole in his body; when he had to fight it — _them,_ down, every other day of the week like clockwork.

Gradually, the feeling of a swarm subsided, the sting of them blunting as the uproar died down so that Faust noticed he had been dragged into the centre of somewhere strange, new and rather empty. Thought he knew he wasn't alone, just existing with others in him, or around him. He wasn't so sure. This was where all of Dark Spear could be seen. Mass of arms, mass of souls, his eyes widened as they rolled forward to greet him. This was where Dark Spear would reside. And, he thought, the way he could _feel_ them there would never go away.

 ** _We Curse You._**

He was intoxicated.

* * *

The last trickle of soul leeched out of the Monster, leaving behind the remains of the human underneath. A million sights departed, and his blue eyes were returned to him. Only one man was left panting and staring at Faust. He was completely exhausted. Frankenstein laid in Faust's twitchy cradle.

He felt so stripped bare. Dark Spear had betrayed him, like they'd always goaded.

He opened and closed his mouth, making small, stuttery breaks in his voice and sucking in to make a sound, any sound. Faust didn't move. He concentrated one hand on supporting Frankenstein, the other holding onto the Spear with dear life. Frankenstein's closed eyes furrowed, and with a thrash of his body, he jerked out of Faust's hold. Frankenstein slammed into the ground, limp and lifeless.

"Faust?!" Ignes neared him.

 _"Don't!_ Come near — me!" Faust grit out, hands squirming. With a heave of his body, Dark Spear revolved around him, concealing Faust under a guise of purple. He wondered if anyone else could hear it, the chittering, as he emerged from the dark energy intact. Dark Spear had dispersed.

 _"Kuh-_

 _"Ha-_

 _"Kuegh-"_

Frankenstein's breaths were short, sharp intakes. He lay on the ground, unable to move. Faust approached him again, slowly lifting his body to lean on him. He felt Frankenstein's skin lurch under his touch, but that didn't stop him. "Stop struggling, Professor, or it's going to hurt more."

Frankenstein tried to spit, but there was so little moisture in his mouth that nothing reached Faust. Faust didn't pull away in the slightest.

"An-answer — me!" Frankenstein choked out, "Dark _Sspear-"_ his words were cut short. Faust tingled with Dark Spear's power. They ruffled up at Frankenstein's call, but did nothing.

* * *

Frankenstein blinked, forcing his eyes to remain open, forcing his eyes to refocus. He had to be awake for the end. He wouldn't cheapen it for anyone. He wondered if dying was right for him now; it might be a mercy. Dark Spear was Faust's now, back in the hands of the Union. What the Zeroth Elder could _do_ with such a weapon. He deserved worse than death. And still, the _what if's_ bombarded him; what if Faust didn't want to end him here, what if they stored him away, what if they used his parts, _what if?_

Did Faust get his revenge in the end? Frankenstein didn't even know if that was what he wanted, after everything. Understanding evaded him — he couldn't logically remember why he had lost.

"I'm sorry, Professor, you weren't the one that was supposed to be here. I meant to do this to the Noblesse…I didn't account for you pretending to be him. Just know that this process — I wanted to do it through him, not you."

Frankenstein scoffed, cringing. His laughs were short, jagged rasps. His words hooked onto Faust like nails into skin. "Do what you want. You'll never get him."

Faust lifted a hand and pressed it squarely over Frankenstein's chest. He looked down at him, and the shadows on his face rusted his eyes into coppers, etching the ages back onto his deceptively young face. His darkened energy touched upon Frankenstein. All of a sudden, the pentagram sigil beneath them began to radiate with Faust's power. Their eyes didn't separate for a moment, and Frankenstein regarded the uncanny glow like the light of an oncoming train, slow and spreading and closing in on his feeble, human body. He grinned. Frankenstein stared up at Faust and grinned his best.

Faust didn't smile back this time. His power was dark, but the hand on Frankenstein's chest was gentle. It was almost unbearable. For an incredulous moment, Frankenstein wondered how such a delicate touch could also cause such momentous destruction. He wanted him to just dig his hand through his sternum, break his heart beneath his fist. The gentleness bothered him, irked his obsessive compulsion, and he wished he'll dig a hole and be done with it. Though that was more than he deserved.

Faust inhaled. His voice was an utter. He pressed his fingers.

 _"Break."_

* * *

notes

"Faust noticed he had been dragged into the centre of somewhere strange, new and rather empty." this place is like, that headspace place and it appears with Franken in chapter 8...I thought I might just say.

It had to be a pentagram because ~Faustian aesthetic~

I'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as possible. Thank you for your support, you guys are everything.


	20. Paradise Lost

This has no affiliation with Noblesse, line webtoon or it's creators.

Credits: Thanks for going over this one, Brissygirl.

Author: angst continues even harder...we don't need a quote, just enjoy this train wreck. Carries on riiiight off from the last chapter.

* * *

 **Paradise Lost**

Then Frankenstein felt it. Something picking and prickling each minuscule impulse between each fragile nerve end like poison nettles, melting down into his skin, sinking into where he couldn't get it out, couldn't scratch or touch or claw at — it was out of his bounds to control. The heat of his body subsided, but now the first spark of pain touched a gentle finger on his face.

 _"Hh!"_ he winced. He grit his teeth. He was confused.

Fatigue still weighed him down but the spark slapped him awake. The cogs in his mind began to whirr and clog and in a breadth of no air, the pieces scrambled into place, falling together in a way that still didn't make sense. Dark Spear was truely gone. Why did it still hurt?

What the hell was this?

"What the hell is this?" Frankenstein sneered, "If you're going to kill me — _get a move on!_ You're boring me—" His deadpan voice took a wind and spiked. Frankenstein gasped, breath waning into a rasp as he contorted, bucking out of Faust's hold a second time. He rolled onto his hands and knees, stilling himself, waiting for the feeling to strike him again when he wasn't sure if it would, or was real.

"I'm sorry, Professor Frankenstein," Faust said.

The pits of his stomach began to roll, wrenching and hauling, slow and unsteady until his own skin felt foreign. Methodical thumps drummed throughout his body and it could be his heart, but he wasn't sure. It hit him like cold hand to hot forehead and Frankenstein tried to lurch away form Faust's touch. But Faust clung to him, amber eyes pleading:

"Look at me."

Blue eyes leered up, mirthful and defiant. The feeling was blaring louder, nearer: not the way Dark Spear used to do, but the way a completely silent room settled under his skin, and he was made totally aware of every sound that was not there.

 _"Please_ look at me, Professor," Faust urged, a touch of something frantic in his voice.

Frankenstein began to yell. Faust had done something to him, was still doing something to him and the pain bore down unlike anything he'd ever felt. His entire body jolting, the insides of his ribcage spasming up-down, down-up in savage lurches, he couldn't stand it. He couldn't control himself.

The connection poured open.

 _"Kh—"_ A whimper snapped their attentions to him. "Ah _…ah…"_ Pain billowed from within his chest, his throat, everywhere and—

"RAIZEL-NIM!" Seira's voice tore the room with its volume, and it took another few seconds to register what was happening.

Raizel collapsed. Fright flooded his red eyes, making the others just as fearful. Something seized him like a foreign hand on his forehead and all of a sudden he understood that he was on the floor, gasping, before more swift, sick jolts fractured the ends of his mind. Raizel opened his mouth to make a sound.

"RAIZEL-NIM?!"

"BOSS'S BOSS WHAT—"

"PROFESSOR?"

Frankenstein spasmed and recoiled, gripped in a craze as he realised what was happening. The bond was wide open, Raizel was hurting because of him and — their souls were pulling apart.

 _Their souls were separating._

"It'll be over soon. Professor."

"No — nono…"

Skin smouldering and mind-numbing, they were feeling pain that wasn't physical but more tangible than they could ever imagine. It was head turning, heart slurring: off-beat rhythms, quick-slow, slow-hitch, skipping too high and slipping over teary cries; slipping over a breaking pledge as their connection began to flick on, and off and on and off…

And on.

It wavered like a mere candle light, the constant patter of rain about to douse it, but only, the fuse itself was fraying apart down the middle. It was a fierce, visceral, ruthless sort of force that cleaved the most inter-woven parts of them agape.

He couldn't stand it anymore. Frankenstein voiced every sear of agony within him, gritting his teeth for dear sanity, clamping his eyes shut when the look in Faust's eye became too much. And when he opened them, the scene had dissolved, the breeze disappeared; he was surrounded by people he could barely recognise.

"SIR RAIZEL!"

Their terrified faces blurred and shuttered before they sharply set into focus, stinging his conscience, and Frankenstein's mind was filled with noise not unlike the way Dark Spear used to make, echoing around his skull and rebounding everywhere. He was completely disorientated: they sounded hurt. Why were they crying out? Why would they cry and not laugh? But they were not Dark Spear — they were the children.

Blotches of white hovered in the background. He couldn't make them out so clearly anymore but it was Regis and Seira, catching the aftermath of a mental out-pouring that was too strong for them not to feel. And the shapes suddenly sharpened again. Scar on lip, white strands on a head of black hair, a long ponytail; M-21, Tao and Takeo were there.

M-21 leapt from his spot, trying to rush to somewhere before he abruptly fell down. Frankenstein remembered what he'd done to him and mouthed his name in confusion. Takeo followed suit, racing through the obstructions to see outside, find an enemy that wasn't there. Frankenstein felt around and pushed himself up all over again, like déjà vu. The pang came back.

But when he opened his mouth to yell, it was Raizel's voice that came out.

Frankenstein was horrified.

"No no no, _n-stop_ — no…"

Faust's voice sounded over Frankenstein's, yanking him back to the battleground, far from the house. "Keep looking, Professor! Keep looking at me."

"Get away from him!" Raizel shouted, circled by the children and miles away. "Get away! From him!"

He felt his eyes defocus, about to flutter shut at the mangled mess in his chest but he forced them open again. A rush of his power seethed over the connection, and he surged himself to brace Frankenstein. He couldn't dull Frankenstein's pain, let alone his anguish this time. When Raizel opened his eyes again he was still on the ground, but dust sifted through his fingers, amber eyes bore into him. He saw Faust touch a shoulder, _his_ — _Frankenstein's_ shoulder, and his unwelcome aura marred their connection.

"Sir Raizel?!" Tao slammed his knees into the floor, clenching a hand on each shoulder as if he could shake the sense back into Raizel, but Raizel recoiled under his grip. Tao was frightened and he let go only to flit forward to steady him again, "Raizel-nim what's wrong?! Howhowhow — how do we help? What do we do? Sir tell us what to do!"

He shook again, sweat-damp body convulsing in strange angles and only a name slipped out of his mouth, "Frankenstein!"

He huffed, tried sucking in air, but nothing made sense and when M-21 touched him, he was feverish. "Frankenstein!" Raizel tried to claw at an invisible something. "Frankenstein! Frankenstein! AHH—"

Two beings shared one combined soul, and it was peeling back, their connection thinning off like the last light of the day. Frankenstein was barely conscious and half-way delirious, his body writhing and contorting as if he really was on fire — but this was the only time he wasn't. Whatever he was feeling, Raizel felt it too, and they couldn't even scream as a crevice shook between them, opening up a gorge.

A sickly, gaping vein ruptured.

Their souls haemorrhaged apart, spilling blood and memories and feelings, eight hundred years of yearning and back when it was just two people in a giant manor. It weathered away like earthen structures, eroding stone and chipping blocks and crumbling flakes and other delicate, fragile things — their connection began to dry up like cold tears, withering like the winter's onset. Their connection became a lingering mist, and Frankenstein reached out his calloused hands to hold onto a last something. He had to hold onto it, he had to hold onto Raizel — hold onto smoke.

"Frankenstein!" Raizel whispered, "Frankenstein don't…"

"Raizel-nim?!" Frankenstein heard someone say.

"What on earth is happening? Sir? Please!" Regis blanked, watching Raizel reach out in his delirium, into nothing.

 _"…don't leave me…"_

"Raizel-nim…"

 _"…don't leave me, Frankenstein…"_

Red tears wet the floor.

Shouts flooded his ears and the walls closed in, swallowing Frankenstein from the children.

"Look at me," Faust said, "Please look at me! Who am I?! Professor?"

His perception changed again and he was watching out of a keyhole. It came back to him, this was one of those familiar times where Raizel couldn't move, couldn't speak, and he knew what that meant.

"Stop — _s-stop!"_

Something hot trickled over Frankenstein's skin, and it could be anything: blood, sweat, tears. Faust's blood, sweat… _tears?_

"Look into my eyes! Professor Frankenstein." But he wasn't as before, his voice wavered between notes as he pleaded with him. "Can you still…not see who I am?"

Frankenstein batted a fist over Faust's jaw. "You're not — who I think you are. You're NOT!"

He knew.

"Professor…when did you realise?"

"—YOU'RE NOT!"

Frankenstein crumpled onto Faust. His tears dripped up his forehead, dirtying his hair as he hunched over. Faust dipped to catch him. Frankenstein used the instance to reach up. He pulled down his mask, ripping back black cloth, red stitches.

Nothing had changed, it was the same face he saw on that night in the school. Maybe he really didn't recognise him then. Or maybe he had tried not to recognise him then.

 _"Tesamu?"_ Frankenstein uttered.

* * *

But maybe, maybe he'd felt like this before.

The things Dark Spear always dreamed to do to him, but they never managed quite like this.

He'd felt the pain of this a thousand years before. For a long time, nothing compared to watching embers fly and the last home he had — not really a home, a hideout, a base, a bunker — the last place he'd holed himself up in for three months tops, shrivel up like burning paper as he wiped it off the maps. It never mattered, wouldn't matter anymore, anyway, because everywhere he went he had a little piece of home with him. A piece of home that loved him and cherished him and bounded after him like he was some hero; and all the dirty things he did and was doing, was wiped off the records like each of those places: itty-bitty on the map.

He'd felt the pain when that blasted noble, one of the younger ones — red hair, one eye, bloody cheek — had dangled the blonde-haired kid's last remnant over his face like a trophy; and he knew that valueless, scrap piece of obsidian ore necklace became conquest more valuable than even some of _his ink on paper,_ in _someone else's coded folder,_ because of what it meant to him. It was better than surgically-cut diamond and all the arbitrary gold rushes taking the world in craze; worth more than Napoleon's pillaged war spoils or the Mongol's golden horde of stolen treasures. All because once, he tucked Tesamu to bed every night.

Because when Urokai shoved that necklace in his face, that was pain. Maybe because the last smidgen of home just dropped off the face of the earth. Gone just like that, just so simply, like the other hundred locations, and he thought he'll never taste that feeling of home again. Wanderer, nomad, drifter, ronin: wherever he went, why did the hapless, hopeless, homeless, all have a common title, the only thing entitled to them? To a man like him.

—

He had to always keep his hands busy, his mind distracted and his thoughts organised in numbered cabinets, always had to fight and keep going or he'll come to a stand still. And that thought scared him like no horror story ever could; not even his own: green-skin and red stitches. Not standing up, not moving his lips, not fixing things, not thinking harder — those were the kinds of things that made him helpless. And helplessness was the same as giving up, admitting you were weak. He hated it and loathed it so much. Because putting aside the shame, the humiliation, the god-awful familiarity of it all, he knew there was always something about him that was intrinsically weak.

Being helpless was holding the hands of your patients, promising them heaven when you knew it wasn't real; that if you had the decision to go to heaven or hell, you'd choose hell because in this world, hellfire was a thousand times more plausible than some _milk and honey_ and _peace_ _after death_ — he knew this well. Because he was where some millions of good people came to burn, and he was as helpless then as he was helpless now, helpless to save the falling people around him. Finally, he'd come full circle. Not anymore, not this time — he can't save himself.

Helplessness was not being fast enough to find half-transformed mutants in the woods; not smart enough to work out the last one fifth of a formula within someone's twelve minutes left to live; not good enough to be trusted by the ones you wanted to care about, had to care about; because if you didn't you were helpless. At the mercy of people miles away and worlds apart, and although you made it so they could never touch you like they did others, they could never lay a sodding finger on you, you were under their thumb — because people trusted the wrong people. They cowered at what they'd crowned him: heathen.

He was helpless before, and one time was enough to tip over the chemicals in his body, the pressure in his blood; he vowed he'd never be helpless again. He made a promise before the graves in the dirt and the grave in his body. But he was, and always was, for centuries upon centuries, helpless like right now.

—

He'd felt the sadness spread like a drug, like something that kept him going while tearing him down all at once — kept him wanting to live and bite the criminals that wronged him, and wanting to slam his head against concrete so he could end it all like a stray dog.

Sadness was realising the dead could grow, grow and grow and grow in their numbers, and rot so easily, like cut flowers. He was made of the same things as them: humans made of flesh and bone, paper-thin skin and fragile little nerves tied up in messy and perfect-all-the-while parcels, and Frankenstein was guilty. Guilty, guilty — why should he live so long and be so strong when others were sick and dying, fading out, fading away, falling out of existence so easily as time went by. Humans were mayflies and he was a roach-like nuisance; indestructible and insufferable, a deadly spark that couldn't be snuffed out. He'd burned too many.

He felt like back then. Once, he was hungry, needy, and a silly little street kid actually halved her twenty centimetre yam with him: some young-looking, old guy who was afraid of adults like her; looking for strange men, like she ended up doing. And he went back to see her when she was seventy five; she fed him dry yams this time, from a garden built from squalor and when he remembered her again she was long gone. When he remembered her again, he couldn't remember her name and sadness swept over him like wind — taking the offending fragments and scattering them behind. When you lived that long you forgot and he was so afraid to forget.

—

Fear was dreaming. Fear was dreaming awake with open eyes and blinking lights, or asleep in a bed, a cot, in sweat-stained clothes and a bound-mouth when the neighbours complained and he went _everywhere._ From that battlefield in Lukedonia (that necklace dangled on a spear head), to the edge of a village where he was banished in circa 1460's, to the sunny path in Australia from which he called out every name starting with an 'R' he knew; _what is her name?! What is her name?! I can't forget her name — what is it? What is her name?!_ — and he refused to say 'what _was_ her name,' even though he scolded Tesamu for missing the smallest details. He refused to believe forgetting a name was just as simple, just as inconsequential as forgetting a voice.

Fear.

It was all of that — the dying, the grave-digging, half-wishes and desperate cursing: howling _it's not fair, nothing's fair,_ a world where justice didn't get served and he was a heretic. The only heretic. Then he found his own god, a little, big god who wasn't even human, but deep down, was more human than he ever turned out to be. A deity civilisations had worshipped not so long ago, and he knew he drank earl grey tea along with minute noodles, died countless times in counterstrike, sighed at the calculus papers that he laid out neatly, corner to corner, dressed 24/7 in high school uniform.

That forbidden fruit of power, he'll steal it again, on a whim, on a fancy, if things were to be right and he'd find the lonely man in the lonely window. Perhaps, if he imagined a little more, a little wilder — waiting for him.

All of those little moments, all of those missing faces, names, people who'd fallen out of his life one by one, the things that moulded him cold and cruel and the best damned runner through the eras, they culminated in him meeting Cadis Etrama di Raizel. Maybe the universe had answered his senseless cursing, and everything aligned in that random happenstance. He was standing, staring at the back of the most demure-looking man he'd ever crossed in the hardened world.

He was cursed, so be it, but the lonely man didn't deserve to be so alone. All of that pain, and helplessness, and sadness — he'd take it all if he could feel just for a bit longer, _right_ around him. And that 'bit longer' became ten years, a hundred years — _till death do us part._

And he didn't want to die,

anymore.

* * *

 _Frankenstein!_

 _"Please…"_ Frankenstein croaked, mouth dry, eyes wet, _"please…don't do this."_

 _Frankenstein..._

Amber eyes stared down at him, disgust flitting through, disdain rolling off. Pity tugged in his chest. "No. Don't beg me. Don't—"

 _"I'm asking you, please…"_

Faust scrunched his face. "No. You don't beg. You don't beg me."

 _Don't leave—_

 _"You can't do this…don't touch our soul, please — god don't touch—"_

"You don't believe in god."

 _"No."_

 _Frankenstein!_

"…"

 _"But I'll beg him too if you'll stop…"_

 _Frankenstein — don't leave me — Frankenstein!_

 _"Tesamu!"_ Frankenstein's voice broke. _"It's me you want. It's always me! Beat me! Don't touch him…"_

Faust silenced him, put a fist to his face, then pulled him up by his long, blonde hair. He spoke, an air of finality in his voice. "Professor Frankenstein. I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to save you."

 _"Tesamu, let go of our soul—"_

 _FRANKENSTEIN!_

"I'm freeing you."

* * *

 ** _snap._**

* * *

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Everything came to a deft stop.

"Raizel-nim?!" Tao's hands were dampening his ruffled clothes.

 _"What the—"_ someone exclaimed.

"Sir?" Came Takeo's voice.

 _"Please help…me up."_

Tao jolted forward and wrapped his arms around Raizel. Raizel gasped, but no sound came out. Over Tao's shoulder, he willed his eyes to see. His children all stood around him, in various forms of shock and fear clinging to their entire bodies. Their distress was so potent and _he was so close to them…_ Raizel could practically feel the colour draining from their faces. He lifted a weak arm to embrace Tao. _Patpatpat._ Tao squeezed him closer, sniffing. _Patpatpat._

"Tao…" came Takeo's soft voice. _Patpat._ Tao drew back with a shaky smile, and he and Takeo lifted Raizel off the floor. The room shifted around Raizel in silence, guiding him to a seat, but Raizel shook his head. He fiddled with a popped-open button with an intensely shaking hand. Takeo put a hand over his. Smiling weakly, he did up Raizel's button.

M-21 swallowed, hard, before he spoke, "Can you tell us what just happened?"

 _"Non opus—_ need to save…Frankenstein…" he could hardly utter the Korean. "Stay…here."

"What?!" M-21 shouted out.

"Frankenstein…needs me."

M-21 bit forward. "Yeah, we gathered! You're sure as hell not leaving us here while you go! No way!"

"I will go as the Loyard Clan Leader!"

"No…" Raizel's voice was soft, _"it's dangerous…No."_

 _"Raizel-nim-"_

"You don't understand," Raizel blurted, "You _do not_ understand! Franken…stein…" A pin drop silence. "I can't…feel anything. He's gone. Frankenstein is no longer my bonded."

Raizel inhaled strenuously. They understood why he was holding his chest. _"…Stay."_

 _"Sorry,_ Raizel-nim." M-21 said, "but we're not him. You can't order us."

"…"

Regis's eyes swiped over to him, widening, but he didn't say anything against him. In one fell swoop, Regis kicked down the hingeless door balancing on the entrance. "Let's go." The household piled out, Tao and Takeo at either of Raizel's side.

"Where is he?!"

Raizel shut his eyes. He felt for the connection. The severed ends leered out, something flayed like stripped skin, and frayed like ribbon ends, and _unfathomable_ to touch. Like the one thing he could always call home, was gone."A place outside the city. Near to the place you parted with him."

"Right. Let's go," Regis called.

But it was Raizel that rushed forward, upheaving a vortex of sediment as the air swivelled where he stood only a second ago. The children moved at their top speeds behind him, trying to catch up, but nowhere near to close. They'd never imagined he could move so fast, but Raizel forged on, trying to outrun his imagination. When he closed his eyes, white, white tulips were all he could see.

The last thought in Frankenstein's mind.

* * *

Notes

IM SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG UGH.

And weird formatting.

'Paradise Lost' is a poetry book that heavily inspired mary shelley's Frankenstein. At one point in the novel, Franken's monster quotes from this book. And, it's about Adam and Eve falling from the divine garden of eden...

Remember her name was Ra'fa? I wrote a full flashback on Franken meeting a nice person on his travels that ended up being Ra'fa, but then scrapped it cos it wasn't all that relevant. So there's a tidbit of her all the way back in chapter 4. The Extended Version will go in the deleted/ alternate scenes...when I get around to that .-. (Like this fic needs to be extended holy damn, I feel like I need to cut down on so much of The Extra. Me, my multiple plot threads and my wordiness...)

This was supposed to parallel the 'nightmare for two' chapter 7 as well. That chapter was really important, for me, anyway.

For the middle sections, I chose four words as prompts: pain, helplessness, sadness, fear (I know, nice,) and then that's^ what happened. Wrote this at the height of my poetry phase XD and I was so super proud of it when I first got it down _hehee._ Do comment! I really want to know what you think of it :O And what you thought of the reveal!

Laryna6 - So I started writing the crackfic, it sucked, I need to go away and get into the mood for it before I can make something nice...eeehhh. Here's the thing - there is no plausible way for Dark Spear to know about Tesamu's role in their creation. You see, Tesamu knew this process was Not Going To Be Fun, and he didn't want to have to face Franken and rip apart the connection. So he went after Rai - he's the face of everything that went wrong and he wanted to break the connection from Rai's end. Maybe he was hoping that it would have hurt more for Rai, less for his bonded. But actually...no, friend, villain...ur wrong. They have a true, equal contract, so it's the same from either end. Acquiring Dark Spear is kind of like, hitting two birds with one stone for Tesamu. It's not explicitly stated until later and i'm sorry for making ppl wait lol, but Dark Spear has motivations too - Tesamu appealed to this in a couple of ways. 1 - by broadcasting his aura. It's exactly as Frankenstein's in his prime, before he took Dark spear and it changed into the corrupted-like purple. It's familiar, it's great, it's oh-so Franken and they love it. 2 - Dark Spear despises Rai. Franken has locked away DS for so long and everything changed when the Raizel appeared. 3 - Dark Spear knew that Faust was Tesamu and this comes into play later. It's like Faust (er, Tesamu) and Dark Spear are the two jealous exes who have made a pact of convenience. I should stop now, but will add more commentary when I remember!

nobody yet - How did the fight end? This definitely will be elaborated on in later chapters but for now - Faust/ Tesamu made an appeal to Dark Spear. How could Franken have lost in full-possession mode, while fully (purple! and) conscious? Because it was Dark Spear that essentially ended the fight. If you skim the last chapter, Lunark, Ignes and Faust had sooo much trouble fighting one possessed Franken. In the end, Dark Spear turned on Franken, overrode his systems while he was distressed, and Franken fell to the ground. There, Dark Spear allowed tesamu to make his move. Hope this helps, and thanks for reviewing!

The Midnight Cat of the Dark - I bring you more and I apologise for the Sads. Enjoy! Hopefully I'll get the next chapter up faster than this one. Lemme know what you think

Elims - Elims I'm so sorry. I hope that this was enjoyable anyhow. G...go back and read the nice flashbacks a couple chapters ago? Thanks for reviewing and you're awesome, I always look out for you :)

Argonautica - if you ever come back, this chapter - lol.

qdeanna - HI. Hoped you liked it.

Kaikouken - if you're reading, pls don't hate me for this chapter's Sads. T.T

Thanks guys. I...I need to sleep.


	21. Too Damned Late

Thanks to Brissygirl for betaing!

* * *

 **9th Century**

 **Gregorian Calendar DCCXCVI**

 **Year 800**

Et tu, Brute?

Humans were fickle things. They were so changeable and malleable and even the slightest bit of pressure could mould them into entirely different beings, capable of wildly different things. Humans had to adapt to live. It was understandable. Evolutionary. Elementary.

His footsteps shuddered across the tunnel. Sound rang uncanny and hollow in this place. No electricity lit up the passageways and he did not need to feel around for his path. He was in total darkness. Frankenstein moved in the carefully suppressed manner of a rattlesnake, sly and guarded, razor fangs something inevitable, rather than predictable. He flicked a finger. Gold sparks flickered alight.

Hours ago, he'd dug up enough secrets that could choke men to their deaths, made his skin crawl and eyes bulge and he'd painted walls in blood — warm to cold. He'd done it with his bare hands, and it was easy.

But this…he needed to be discrete.

He needed to see his face.

This was hard.

Frankenstein reached the end of the corridor. Left: his room. Right: Tesamu's. He entered the doorless room, greeted by piles of scrolls, books, quills and ink pots. What other secrets could he find here that would make him retch? He passed the clutter, turning a blind eye for tonight. Frankenstein's aura began to pulse with a beat. Light cast upon his face, shadowing his eyes, his nose, his hair, before it faded and glared again. Glow, _fade_ ; glow, _fade_ ; glow, _fade._

 _Glow:_ He could hear calm breaths from the centre of the room. _Fade:_ His leg brushed over the bed frame. _Glow:_ Light illuminated his apprentice, revealing the fly-away curls in his hair and blankets drawn up to his little neck. _Fade:_ Frankenstein could end everything as easily as pulling a weed, without so much as lifting two fingers. He should end the entire chain of spies with this one decisive agent. That was the logical thing to do. Frankenstein valued logic a lot.

 _Glow_.

It wasn't wrong of the boy to be selfish, to want to survive. He was a boy.

 _Only…a boy._

A whimper floated out of his mouth before he could stop himself. _No._ _No._ Frankenstein killed his light. Darkness swallowed the room again. The sound of shifting sheets made his insides blanche and wilt. Tesamu moved, his face tucking farther into the pillow, right foot hooking the bottom of the sheets, the sheets falling off his chest as he stretched. His breaths were slow and long and un-innocent.

Frankenstein drew a breath. What was he doing? _What am I doing?_ What would that make him — to kill a child? What would be the difference between him, and _them?_

So this was betrayal. _No._ This was cause and effect. This was what happened when you got soft, let another liability walk into your life. Live your life with you _._ A liability with spindly bones that had shook with terror when he found him; a brilliant brain when he taught him everything he'd come to discover; and a warm heart that beat, unknowingly, that Frankenstein should end him — and he didn't want to.

Yes, Tesamu had betrayed him. He had fed away his knowledge to bad men and knew what he was doing straight from the beginning. But he also laughed when Frankenstein mocked silly men. He cried at a grazed knee. He jealously hoarded his wooden spinning top, ran after butterflies in the summer and piled up sand on the beach.

A memory:

 _"Look! Professor! That sand sculpture's youu…and that one's me!"_

 _"…Why don't you have a nose?"_

 _"There's only one pinecone…I used it on you."_

 _"Hehe…are you really that tall?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"…"_

 _"I'm going to get as tall as you one day. See? I'll be up to your shoulder in no time."_

 _"Oh yeah? Say that to your unfinished porridge."_

 _"I…I was going to finish it. I'm just saving it…"_

 _"Liar, liar, pants on fire."_

 _"HEY!"_

His vision blurred and Frankenstein crumpled. With a hot hand, he swiped over his eyes.

 _'Tesamu,'_ he mouthed.

 _"Even you?"_

Everybody was after him. They wanted to take power in his skin, the knowledge in his brain, and all for the wrong reasons.

Tesamu wanted to survive.

He wanted Tesamu.

Frankenstein withdrew, lips drawn to a line on his stony face. Tesamu's breathing picked up volume as his mouth slipped open, and a soft wheeze blew out. Frankenstein's eyes brightened and relaxed. He shook his powerless hands on the covers, pulling it up to the boy's chin. A long finger traced his hair off his nose. His hand reluctantly separated.

"Goodnight, Tesamu."

Frankenstein smiled as he left Tesamu to his sleep.

* * *

 **Too Damned Late**

"What's this?" came a child's voice. "Hey look! It's really pretty."

Her mother peered down at the silver clutched in her fist. "Let's see?"

"It's mine now. I found it."

"Where did you find it? _Hey_ — stay under the umbrella." Though when the girl tottered away, her mother didn't bother to pull her back; they were soaked through anyway. It seemed the storm was subsiding.

"I found it in this puddle!"

The mother squinted through the thicket of mist. The finely-cut shape of a cross was ornamented with a single ruby. It gleamed in the wet air, charming the little girl. "Careful honey," the mother chided, "see the chain there? It's broken. Don't cut yourself."

"It's so pretty. What's such a pretty thing doing here?"

Five shadows skipped across the grounds, two fast, three slower, dimming the glint of the ruby. But when the girl looked up, she was too late to see a thing.

* * *

"He's here," Zeroth Elder said.

Lunark's eyes widened. She peered around the terrain. "…How do you know?"

"I can feel it. _It_ can feel it." He moved a wry eye, "the soul weapon."

The wounds scorched into Lunark's arms weren't healing. She flexed her muscles, concentrating on dealing with the damage. Tesamu collected up the folds of his clothes and begun wringing the moisture from the ends. "You should go with Ignes."

"What?" Lunark said.

 _Oh._ She still didn't trust him.

"You still don't trust me?"

Lunark sighed lengthily. Not out of annoyance, but more like exasperation. "You just proved that you'd lied to the Union about your identity. Since the very beginning. _Tesamu._ That's what he called you isn't it?"

 _"Since the very beginning_ — since before you were born, Lunark."

Lunark's brows crinkled. She brushed her silver hair back, flexing her claws. "I need to stay here to be able to give a full report to the Second Elder. It's my duty," she said honestly. "No disrespect, Zeroth Elder."

"Hm."

"Will Ignes listen to you?" she asked, eyes strained on the horizon.

Tesamu smiled, rearranging the mask curled around his neck like a scarf now. "Ignes has always listened to me, you know. I think she was more loyal to me than her father." His lips curled upwards. "Just sit back nice and tight. The Noblesse is on his way, Lunark."

Lunark didn't move a muscle.

"Here he is."

She gaped as she spun around her tattered clothes, eyeing everything in frenzy. The slightest pressure touched down behind her and she jolted. Lunark was face to face with the Noblesse. A horrified fascination flitted through her eyes as she felt his power boil nothing around him. It wasn't clammy, the air didn't heat or cloy like it did around Frankenstein, but this might have been worse. Maybe it was the very molecules in the air that had changed in his presence, and this noble, she knew he was powerful despite his small frame, his delicate landing. Like his power thrummed just beneath the surface, ready to radiate it's way out, and there was nothing but his tired, unamused face holding it back.

Barely.

She couldn't fight this noble.

She could die here.

The Noblesse marched forward, rigid yet resolute. He didn't so much as spare her a look as he walked slowly past her transformed body. No sight drawn, no words exchanged. When he passed her, Lunark snapped back, flouncing behind Zeroth Elder. She'll stand her ground. This was her duty.

The Noblesse faced the Zeroth Elder.

"Noblesse, Cadis Etrama di Raizel," he smiled, showing his true face, "it's most pleasurable to greet you again. Fancy seeing you here? Don't you agree?"

"Tesamu."

His eyes seeped of all feigned warmth. The smile was gone, as was all attempts at pleasantries. They were beyond that point now.

"So he told you about me. How embarrassing." Tesamu rolled his eyes. "What did he say about me? I did some silly things when I was young, mark my words…"

"Everything."

Tesamu broke off, not amused.

Raizel's face was stone. "I knew it was you, before he did."

 _Bullshit._

"Don't try to act high and mighty, Cadis Etrama di Raizel. He couldn't even recognise me without my mask."

"I recognised you through your eyes."

Tesamu faltered.

"I've seen you, more often than you know," Raizel spoke, lowly, "I know you were his apprentice, but that time has passed. You have hurt him. And I will hold you accountable." The image of the sunny boy flashed through his mind, and Raizel pushed it back. He drank in the hateful face before him. He thought that little, golden boy, really did die.

"I have no patience for you. _Where is Frankenstein?"_ The order passed through his lips, hauling something that made Lunark feel completely grounded, stuck between something invisible. Her legs were increasingly weakening.

Tesamu's eyes narrowed dangerously, parrying the command like sword clashing sword. "You can't make me do a thing, Raizel."

Red eyes pierced into Tesamu, and Raizel blatantly held his stare. "Where. Is. _Frankenstein?_ " Another something lurched through the vicinity, and Lunark found it harder to breathe. Nothing was directed at her, but his commands flowed from him, encircling this place with power. It was in this moment that she realised that Faust — _Tesamu_ — was more powerful than many of those with a seat as an Elder. That he deserved every concession that the First and Second elder often gave him — including withholding his existence to the very last moment. The Zeroth Elder was strong. Someone whose control over their own mind could contend with the Noblesse.

"Tell me, Tesamu," Raizel demanded.

"No thanks, Raizel." With a cock of his head, Tesamu covered an eye with his fringe, and smirked.

 ** _"Kneel."_**

Lunark's legs gave out, and she fumbled to the floor onto both knees. Tesamu's shoulders balked and his back tipped over in a rigid bow that he'd clearly not planned for. _"Kgh!—"_

Gravity bore down on him ten-fold; Tesamu's body was shaking under the pressure, unlike anything he'd experienced before. His bones wanted to creak and bend, his muscles wanted to relax and yield — _hell_ — his body needed so badly to submit.

 _"On your knees, Tesamu."_

A beady eye turned up to defy the Noblesse. His movement was jerky. What was a hilarious lampoon brewed into a wreathing, stabbing malice, and Tesamu strained every inch of his mind and body to look Raizel in the face with all the venom contained in his own. He felt disgusting, bending over. In a single heave, Tesamu's vibrating body yanked back.

He broke free of his mind control.

Shock glossed over Raizel before his expression turned to stone. Only a small muscle worked in his jaw, and he didn't think he could control himself much longer either. Pain throbbed from his chest in low and insistent waves. Inside, he still felt flayed. Shredded ends hovered around the place something — _someone_ was meant to be. He'd never felt so empty before.

"Where is my bonded?!" Raizel cried. Lunark shivered on the floor, wanting to look away but too fearful to do so.

"Your bonded?" spat Tesamu. He reached back a hand into his hair, brushing it back as he fell forward in a mocking laugh. _"Ahaha_ — you still have the face to call him _your bonded?!"_

Disdain rolled off his repugnant aura, and it amplified with his tone. "Have you ever considered that he didn't want to be bonded with someone like you? He came to me! He came to his apprentice to rid himself of you! And now he's free!"

Something changed within Raizel. He flung his left hand to the side. The black ring, the last seal on his power crumpled and fell. More pain bloomed from his chest, but he summoned his power all the same, ignoring everything to feel anger for once and—

 _"Raizel-nim?!"_

M-21's grating voice called behind him. The children landed, speeding to his side with laboured breaths. Tao immediately put a hand to Raizel's shoulder, startling him, and it took all his power not to shake it off right now. It was a calming gesture, but he was toiling inside and nothing could quell him; not even the throb his own, torn soul.

"This bastard's responsible?" Tao said lowly. "Where the hell is Boss?"

Seira stopped beside him. "We attack on your order, Raizel-nim."

Tao swallowed. "Sir—let us-"

"And the cavalry arrives!" Tesamu's smirk went even wider. "Your followers are devout, Raizel."

 _"Rai-what?!"_

"Where is Frankenstein?" Raizel repeated, startling the children beside him.

Tesamu settled, stowing away the rest of his grandiose gestures for just a moment. Just a moment, a crack in the bizarre whispers filling his head, and he didn't need to shout over it. For a moment, the quiet hung in the air between them.

"Professor Frankenstein is dead."

Ozone might have dragged down from the upper levels of the sky. Pressure swooped from all directions, forcing their breaths new and crisp all of a sudden. From above, ethereal, atmospheric throes revolved the instant the Noblesse willed it. His power bled the skies red, and tones of colour began to rush around them, spellbinding them all. All except Tesamu. Contempt glazed over the slits of his narrowed eyes, and he watched the sky grow redder with a ravenously-growing hatred.

As if he could hate even an inch more.

"No amount of blood fields is going to change that!" Tesamu didn't care for the disbelief in the other's eyes, the noble children, the modified humans, the fake werewolf — he only cared to kill Raizel.

"He died in the process of getting away from you. Not many people can say that, can they? Frankenstein is dead and go—"

"I did not give you permission to speak outside my question," Raizel glowered over him, eyes glowing crimson. He moved away from the children, blood field moving as he did. The children knew to stay back and he was grateful for it this time.

"I did not give permission for Frankenstein to break his contract with me," he said, "I did not give permission for Frankenstein to use Dark Spear," he stressed, "And I did not give permission for _you_ , to _lie."_

Raizel stopped under the vortex of his power. Blood pooled into the corners of his eyes until he couldn't retain them. They welled out, hot like tears. _"You dare lie to me, Tesamu?"_

"I dare tell you the truth, Raizel," Tesamu smiled.

A pulsing blood spout funnelled into existence, heading straight for Tesamu.

Lunark slammed in front of it, barely deflecting it with what power she could muster. _"AAGHH!"_

She was thrown back, skidding to a stop before she pounced to divert the Noblesse's next attack. "Zeroth Elder!"

Tesamu blinked at her. "…I'm glad Roctis bought you, Fifth Elder."

He turned to see Raizel with his cold, cold eyes. "You want proof then?" his voice hardly carried over.

Regis looked frightfully to Seira. The children stood frozen, comprehending nothing.

Tesamu reached his arm into the air.

Within the second, Raizel drained of his conviction, an extraordinary fear wrangling up from the tattered ends of his soul — no one to hold back for, no presence to brave it with him. When he reflexively felt inside himself, nothing was there. The blood in his eyes merged with his tears. Tesamu's voice boomed aloud.

 ** _"Answer my call,_**

 ** _"Dark Spear."_**

A yell rang through the land.

* * *

He'd felt the madness. The strangest, weirdest, unearthly things that made his insides churn below his skin like cooking acid and the master of blood had no blood to boil. The kind of madness that flipped everything right-way-up up-side-down and the world inverted in his eyes, the logic twisted in his mind; and one thought was the only thing that he could keep himself concentrating on, without hurling over and spitting everything he'd bottled up inside to go stale. Stale, and rancid and putrid, that was his fight with his friend. Yes, they were friends, dear friends, but then why were they fighting? Why were they hurting? It made no sense: _no, no, none;_ sense had gone out the window, his window, and nothing mattered except the outrageousness of the fight.

Disobliging, discombobulating; he felt the perverse nature of the then-werewolf-Lord's madness strike and embed him over and over, nothing but piercing-hot iron and red-wood stakes meshed in Muzaka's claws, digging into his pale skin. Madness was being the only one to make the decision, to have to spin the wheel, pull the trigger — and decisions made him clammy, like every cause and effect he had to balance over a scale made of sand in his head and one more grain would send it all crumbling into dust.

Choices, choices, impossible decisions; he lifted his head in his right mind, pointed his open palm in his unclean conscience, and willed his body into submission — kill Muzaka. The disconcerted noble, with the unhinged friend in a far-fetched human world. Here, little girls died on horseback from arrow-shots amid conspiracy, and he'd let his bonded rot alone for eight hundred years.

—

He felt the envy pollute his hair and venomise his breath and red eyes — the humans could always see things like nobles never could — they'd call him green-eyed because he wanted so much more. He was a prisoner of his own making and though he was content with that, he'd resigned his fate, he despised it all at the same time; you couldn't whine or moan if your own miseries were your own doing; you couldn't want or need if your duty tells you not to and _noblesse oblige_ , he must oblige _,_ he was the _Noblesse._

Everybody else's little victories, everybody else's little justices made him hop and skip inside, even when he'd never hopped or skipped in his long, long life; but once in a while he'd ask himself, what are my wants and what are my needs? He fancied things and all the things outside his less-than-an-inch, brittle and shatterable window; how he wanted, how he yearned, lust-stricken, but he never let himself think a moment more out of line and he didn't reach further than that hard, frigid glass. He never learned to dream, because when he shut his eyes, forever, _forever_ was the only thing he could see.

He who never asked for anything, wanted absolutely everything, yet everywhere he looked he had _nothing_ until he had him — Frankenstein — beautiful and lovely and wondrous, filling him with beauty and love and wonder too; and now he was falling, back into the nothingness void where Frankenstein had once made it bright. He wanted him, like he'd never wanted anything else in the world since the first half-limbed, fish-like, tail-stunted creature lugged itself onshore and humanity would be born some billions of years later. All leading up to the momentous moment of blonde hair, blue eyes, pale face and bone-crushing, disembowelled soul-pieces floating ready to strike the man down before him. He'd never let them, Dark Spear, never let them touch perfection and Lord — Frankenstein was so flawed and perfect — why must he lose him too?

—

Loneliness was all he had ever known. Bound by his duty and bound by the things bloodier than blood: a one-soul, soul weapon running free through his veins and infused in his feeble body. Divinity was lonesome and he was supposed to be divine. He was supposed to be great. He was supposed to be the epitome of everything good and just and right — but then why did he feel so guilty?

He remembered, once, he had a brother. He had a brother and when he closed his eyes he might still hear his words ring through his mind, see the desire in his eyes that clawed him down; if he put even a toe out of line, reach a finger where he shouldn't, he might end up just like him. He felt the craze. It was outlandish, the day two sets of phoenix wings would dwindle down to one, and after that day he ended the war, hid away calamity — a blood stone — under his house, no one dared look him long enough in his eye. Why should his people feel safe around a noble who would murder their own brother? Why should he be honoured, a noble who would kill their own blood?

They saw a relentless, ceaseless, one-man firing squad, and when the clouds drew in and darkened his window, he saw the same thing. He saw something deadly and destructive, _and_ he saw his brother. Because something died within him that day: his brother choking under his power, his family snuffed out from under his wingspan, and the sorrow in the other Cadis's voice was something he could never forget. Though how he tried through the millennia. He withdrew, miles and miles within himself beyond each lethal organ, where he couldn't harm, if he didn't really live.

—

They made poems about him for ten thousand years — fleeting humans and long-living nobles alike — the being of many cultures were all the same: he held the hangman's noose and he was the hangman. Their god of justice was a paradox — no one's hands were bloodier than his and the blood in his hands were that of his own people. What did it mean to be the protector of nobles?

Kings were crushed under the weight of their jewel-clad, gold-carved crowns, and he was still crashing under his bone and blood, still cutting his wrists to water noble-kind. He only ever heard their praises sung out of adoration and fealty, but their rejection — breath-holding terror and unvoiced hate — was something that wriggled under his brain, slimy and true, making him feel the grime in his existence. A rose bush made only of thorns was not praised, nor beautiful. He was a graceful disgrace, something to be ashamed of and hidden away, locked away, in a dark corner they kindly called a palace. Noblesse: the most inelegant job in the entire race.

The protector of nobles could not protect himself: a noble.

He sentenced and sentenced and bore all of their resentment, touching prison-bar glass in his own solitary confinement. If figurehead facades had to be seen once in awhile — once in awhile in two hundred years — when he was ordered into their marble court he made sure he wasn't heard. His voice began to rust. His eyes began to dim. His soul began to dull, deteriorating in overuse or underuse all the same. Soul-letting, blood-letting, he gave himself away: drop by drop, cell by cell. Everybody needed him, nobody wanted him. And one breathless day, brick and mortar filling his lungs, vines and weeds sprouting in his joints, the man who ran dropped off the face of the world…

Only to end up in his.

Frankenstein offered his soul like bread, he offered his blood like wine — and the Noblesse thought: _heavens,_ nothing could ever taste so _damned sweet._

He thought, if everything he'd endured for an eternity, many eternities; things like slowly giving up his selfhood or slowly giving up his life, shrivelling away and alone in a big old mansion…if he had to bear his people's hate again, that would be fine. If living this life, his life, meant meeting Frankenstein — fight-ruffled and wind-tousled in one of _his_ identical white shirts — he wouldn't change a thing.

He thought, he might just have the right to be greedy, just this once. He added one more duty to his silver platter, and he savoured this one, treasured it though he knew good things could never last long enough. But _dear,_ how long it's been. How long was eight hundred years for a human?

When he took Frankenstein's soul in his own shaking soul, sweet tooth was the only thing he could ever, ever be.

* * *

Seira gasped in the bloodied air, trying to get a grip over herself, her numbed head, her prickling fingers. She realised her hands had clamped over her ears, and that was the only indication that told of her of reality — something horrible had happened. Dark Spear had been summoned and it was not Chairman that had summoned it. She'd never heard something so terrible, never thought she could hear something more terrible than Raizel's cries of pain back in the house only moments ago, though it seemed an eon had passed since then.

All-striking and penetrating, the barriers in her mind shattered like mirrors, the pieces still crunching and rocking as Raizel's grief shook her to the core. Her eyes blinked shut, her mouth contorted open, but she didn't dear make a noise over his. She couldn't bear to witness this. Something beyond her years and her masquerading as a ready, responsible adult, she wished she could be the thing everybody needed her to be right now. The Loyard Clan Leader. But right now, she'd never wanted to cry more.

A pair of hands clasped around her, _who was it?_ — Tao? Takeo? M-21? — and she realised she had tumbled to the floor, knees pressing into the fire-scorched dirt even though this was meant to be a rainy day and she couldn't make sense of any of her scrambling senses. When she forced open her eyes, she realised Regis had done the same; he'd collapsed, but he thrust a fist into the ground. Regis really was crying.

Because…

Because the Noblesse could not control his powers. His emotions veiled over the nobles.

She opened her mouth to whimper, and Death Scythe protectively manifested beneath her fingertips.

Raizel-nim was crying.

* * *

The blood field had wavered and jostled, jittered and spilt from the perfect dome. Raizel's power was interrupted by the cackling form of the undead. Dark Spear shot a hole clean through the red. From that break in his all-powerful and fragile-all-the-while powers, his blood field split apart. It distorted and wobbled away into less than vapour.

It was surreal. Sometimes, when Raizel opened his mind and listened closely enough, he might hear Dark Spear rolling within the walls of his own mind, though they were encaged elsewhere. Frankenstein never let him go near it. But he still knew the feeling, knew it as it rolled through Frankenstein, made his skin jump and writhe, and now…

Now they were here, the millions of them, selfish and laughing and Raizel wondered if he opened his senses, if he listened closely enough, would he hear Frankenstein laughing amongst them? Or was there none of him left, they'd finished picking off his bones?

 _Lord,_ he wished to wake up.

 _Lord,_ he wished for Frankenstein to wake up, if this was in his dream.

 _Wake up. Wake up._

 _Wake up._

 _Wake up, Frankenstein._

* * *

"GAHH!"

M-21 manifested his claws, transforming into a more-than-a-half werewolf. He lurched forward with one working arm, aiming at Tesamu as purple flared from his figure _— that's not yours!_ — before his ankle got caught and he stumbled into the dirt.

Tao had whipped a cable around M-21's foot and pulled him back, and now Takeo was at his side, holding down his wrists as he shouted at him, "ARE YOU CRAZY?! You want to try going up against Dark Spear?! You think Frankenstein would want that?!"

But as soon as he calmed, shook sense into M-21, Takeo cringed as he saw Tao aim his electric cables at Tesamu. Luckily, _luckily,_ Lunark caught it easily, stripping the cable from his hands. Electricity sparked as it rope-burned out of Tao's hold.

"Protect Sir Raizel!" M-21 croaked, "Takeo, to Raizel!"

Tesamu jerked.

 ** _We curse you._**

"That's fine by me," Tesamu uttered, the vicious, nephilim-filled spear compacted in his hand. "As long as you curse _him_ too."

 ** _Yes._**

Dark Spear's power rocketed towards Raizel.

 _ **Curse you.**_

Regis yelled in horror. "NO!"

Suddenly, the Death scythe cut the purple tide into two streaks, digging ravines into the earth as Seira was pushed back. Seira tossed back her hair and guarded Raizel. "Please!" she called out, senses splaying, still coming together, "Raizel-nim, we must fall back!"

A second strike shot from Tesamu, and Dark Spear flickered greedily in his burning hands. _"You want Frankenstein? Here he is."_

Dark Spear's aura drenched over the area, coming upon Seira. Death scythe's power battled with Dark Spear's, grappling and slashing with claw and blade. But Seira was distressed. She was hurt, and her mind was still buzzing. Purple spun around her, enclosing her within purple tendrils. Seira fell to the floor, unable to move.

Tesamu closed the distance in a single jump. Raizel looked into those hardened, golden eyes, wondering where all the wonder had gone when he had seen them again and again, in someone else's dream. He felt so tired and _finished_ with it all. If he could just look away from them, if he could just close his eyes and drift to sleep, that was all he wanted.

"Good riddance, Raizel."

Dark Spear screamed as Tesamu wielded them to strike him.

Raizel exhaled.

A voice echoed around them.

 **"Heed my will…"**

Nestled with imperial rubies and adorned with a gilded cross, a gold-hilted longsword descended from the knocked-back mist. Light doused over the land in a circular clearing, dispersing rain clouds with the sword at the epicentre. Even Dark Spear's power was shuttered back by its shockwave.

 **"…Ragnarok."**

Raizel vaguely looked to the landed soul weapon.

M-21, Takeo and Tao opened their mouths, awestruck, minds starting to move again only after they saw Regis go down onto one knee. Seira breathed awake again and she too shifted into a bow, Death scythe respectively lowered at her side.

Tesamu's eyes went wide in disbelief. Then a stroke of fear flickered though him before anger fired up, and his brow scrunched, his face contorted. Time had ran out. He twisted his entire body, whipping Dark Spear to strike again. They rocked to and fro, dark aura spilling from the spear head as Tesamu went for the attack.

 **"Appear thyself…"**

A massive jousting lance fell from the skies, this time quashing Dark Spear's attack as it shot forward. It broke the dark energy into fragments, scattering it's power. Regasus had descended.

"No," Tesamu muttered, _"no."_

Then, one by one, the soul weapons of the Clan Leaders wedged into the ground between Raizel and Tesamu, rolling the area with a momentum that was dizzying to behold. Tesamu recoiled back in their magnificence.

 **"Grace me…"**

 **"I greet you…"**

 **"Come to me…"**

 **"Here, I summon thee…"**

The Kartas dropped metres away from each as if they'd been thrown from miles away; Blood Witch rose from the grounds without splitting it, one haunting eye cracking open. Then three jet black arrows of Amore shot into the dirt between the M-21, Takeo, Tao and Lunark, before Izarok, the shield and long dagger, crashed as well. Another pair of dual daggers fell, crossing each other before Regis, and he winced. Even Grandia was here.

Their impact made an earthquake rumble beneath the tectonics of the earth, upheaving a layer of debris and smoke. M-21 crossed his transformed claws over his head, turning away with Takeo and Tao as they braced. Raizel just stood vacantly, the look in his crimson eyes still jaded. Trails of red marred his face.

Out of the veneer, the Clan Leaders of Lukedonia loomed each before their soul weapons: Gejutel took hold of Regasus as Rajak crouched to take the Kartas. Kei Ru stood with his gauntlets adorned on each fist while Amore rested on Karias' shoulder. Rael eyed Regis scornfully as he picked up Grandia. _"Tch."_

 **"Cadis Etrama di Raizel."**

The Lord's voice dialled back down to normal.

"Lukedonia comes to your aid."

"We are late, Raizel-nim, forgive us," Gejutel apologised. The Clan Leaders dipped their heads in his direction, each one pinning a hard fist to their chest.

Raizel stood, tears slipping out of his unblinking eyes. "…Why did you come…Erga Kanesis di Raskreia?" he managed to say.

She looked past him, frowning. "We come to the aid of our Noblesse." Raskreia took hold of Ragnorok, wrenching her long sword to point at Tesamu. "You speak as if it were not obvious."

* * *

Notes.

Enter: Raskreia.

Fic reader 'nobody yet' is a native arabic speaker and they pointed out a translation or eng romanisation mistake. "Rafa" did not translate. So now the girl from chapter 4's flashback, in 'nobody yet's' words, is " رأفة which means mercy, that would be spelled as Ra'fa, رفع." Thanks nobody yet!

Guys - Check out qdeanna's 'what if' art of Faust meeting her character, Fai. Fai is a fusion (like in the show Steven Universe) of Frankenstein and Raizel. I've put a copy and past-able link on my profile. (and qd, I linked the version on my tumblr so people can read the bit of explanation I put up too. Hope that's ok, let me know.)

So I couldn't resist and put the flashback title as "Et tu, Brute" haaahahaha. It's what good ol' Caesar said to his friend Brutus when he got stabbed 23 times by Brutus and co. According to Shakespeare's dramatique play account, that is. I was just going to go "Et tu, Tesamu" it even rhymes! But then I was like nah, the original's too gold not put it in. I know ages are wonky in noblesse for the older characters, but my Rai is like...old old. When I first read Noblesse, I had the impression that Rai was older than Gejutel for some reason. I dunno man. Maybe it was the way he just talked and acted, I thought it was just noble magical tomfoolery and Gejutel was younger than him. Or maybe it's because the older Rai is, the funnier the premise of noblesse is. He's older than human civilisation and goes to high school. Plays pc bang with all his high school friends. Jus cos.

I said I'll put up small side stories of this fic, but only when I've brushed those up and they're up to a readable standard. When I find the time...

* * *

\- XxDarkBeautyxX - Oh my gosh the next comic relief is not close enough this is actually not good. Sigh. You'll have to bear with it I'm sorry. But hey - *places Raskreia in centre stage* some Lord Raskreia? Would that cheer you up?

\- nobody yet - Yeeeeeee! I foreshadowed the crap out of Tesamu so I'm glad you got that. Yes - I wrote hello loneliness a bit before this without any idea that I was going to basically redo it XD. It was good practice then, I guess.

\- Cold April - Revive! Raskreia is here to save your soul. I know I have to turn everything into mopey and Sads but wait! There's a ray of light in the next chapters...And yes, fanfic gives me the chance to flesh out Frankenstein as he goes to save '21 and Kentas in the webtoon~ yay, thanks for reviewing.

\- Guest - you tell it, guest, you tell it to Tesamu. It's like Gatsby, or, in qdeanna's words, Humbert from Lolita. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Oh...I...er...no. This fic isn't ending all that soon, still a bit to go... So bear with me! Thanks for your review

\- The Midnight Cat of the Dark - I'm not a tragic ending wtf how would I sleep at night. Wipe your tears, banish your woes-ish. I swear next chapter is a little less mopey. Thanks for reviewing ahhhhhhh.

\- crowbutterly - At least it broke your heart in a good way, I'm sorry and I'm glad you liked it :D (smile face, I know XD) Lol indeed, right?

\- general zargon - Ye, it seems my Faust Foreshadowing worked. Ha! Shinwoo and co have taken a back seat in the fic since Shit Went Down, but yep - I love them all and they're coming back for cameos here and there.

\- Elims - Elims, thank YOU.

\- if daylight-star is reading, hiii

\- if argonautica is reading, hii

\- Laryna6 - the middle section, I wrote it alongside Franken's thing in the last chapter. I couldn't put a title in the middle of the chapter, but it's titled "Sweet Tooth." :D

\- qdeanna - thank you for your art umPH. (M...maybe you should fic Fai. J...just a thought)


	22. Weeping God

Disclaimer: This has no affiliation with Noblesse.

Thank you, Brissygirl, for beta-ing~

* * *

 **12 Century**

 **Buddhist Calendar 1726**

 **Gregorian Calendar MCLXXXII**

 **Year 1182**

Borneo

A man trod through the wilderness, batting away insects and tracing his eyes along the grassy path. The greenery of this place seemed gnarled over the sky, obstructing the blue in a criss-crossed layer of leaves and branches. Though the day was bright, shadows were cast over his face; he squinted at the beams passing through the cracks in the canopy, shedding spots of sunlight onto the floor. Wind shook the trees, sending a scatter of leaves to flock like birds. But they only fell, instead of flying. They descended gently through the air, paving the ground in his wake.

A few clotted together in small clumps as they reached the end of a series of small streams, bordered by moss and lichen. The vegetation ate away at the rock, and he saw that every inch of this place was scrawled over by something else, plants or fungi or other damp-looking things. The canopy of overhanging trees drew back and broke apart abruptly. His footsteps felt firmer and more gravelly, and the transition from under the trees to the rocky riverbed came with no warning.

As did the current of air behind his back.

He pricked up his ears. He extended his claws. The werewolf bounded forward, indenting his footprints deep into the earth. After a moment of stillness went by, he bore his claws down, ripping a shockwave through the forest. Fallen leaves rushed up in frenzy around the two figures, the very trees bent back in fear of them.

A pair of crossed wrists pushed up the claws, revealing a scowl over their deadlock of arms.

"Relax. It's me."

"Frankenstein?"

"Yes, Muzaka. Now get your claws off my cuffs."

"Nm."

They separated.

"What are you doing out here, Frankenstein? This is-"

"Borneo," Frankenstein finished, exasperatedly.

Muzaka just stared. "What? The nobles have some problem with me."

"If they did would that concern me in the slightest?"

"Did my family get you to find me?"

"Can your family get me to do a single thing for them?"

Muzaka scrunched his nose. Insects fluttered by, making him twitch them off. "Raizel doesn't know you're here, does he?"

Frankenstein set his eyes. They became garish. "No. But that's not the point right now. Muzaka…" he swallowed.

Muzaka finally took in the image of the search-raggled, dishevelled human. Dark circles lined his blue eyes and Frankenstein looked incredibly anxious in his suit and bow. _It must be boiling._ Muzaka scratched the back of his neck, eyeing him in confusion.

"I need you to do something for me," Frankenstein managed to say.

Muzaka made a face. "…You came all the way out here to find me in the jungle…to ask me?"

"Yes!" Frankenstein stressed, making Muzaka lift two brows. "A favour."

Suddenly, Frankenstein's lips tightened, his throat clenched, and he frowned at the ground to steady himself. Then slowly, reservedly, he spoke to the floor. "Please. _Lord_ Muzaka. I need your help."

He never called him that. Muzaka let go of Borneo and put all his focus on Frankenstein.

"Alright. Talk."

* * *

 **Weeping God.**

 _Before:_

Humans could only withstand a certain degree of pain. Anything less was endurable and they could stand their ground, bear it, resist, but they could only do so for so long. Anything more was fire and brimstone: heart-pounding adrenaline highs, nerves firing muscles in wrong ways — there would be squirming, there would be screaming, and they wouldn't be able to keep their eyes open. After a certain point, the tolerance is exceeded and they fall unconscious. So much hurt, the only way to fight back was not to. A sort of mind-numbing relief.

Nobles weren't wired in the same way as humans. Nobles couldn't feel the same things in the same ways that humans did. Pain was relative, and physical pain for nobles — they could keep on going even after a limb or two was ripped off. Gushing lacerations and see-through stabs: they stung, and then they moved on. The heightened healing helped and so their tolerance was higher. Physical pain couldn't de-capacitate nobles the way it did humans — _ever._

Nobles couldn't feel the same things as humans. Perhaps it was their longevity. Century after century, millennia after millennia of life and living, it was easy to grow apathetic. Blink an eye and an empire rises; strike a yawn and a civilisation crumbles. Turn your back and the humans had forged into a new age. What did it matter, when everything was fleeting? Nobles stayed the same. They lived such prolonged and detached lives, far away in their own worlds, that nothing fazed them much. Choosing eternal sleep over living out the entirety of their lives was standard. Their emotions did not work like humans'. To live so long was to court loss.

When a noble did feel pain, that was a death sentence. Should a noble find something in their eons-long life they honestly cherished…many nobles opted to fall into eternal sleep than _feel._

Noble pain was pandemonium, something that shook souls. Pain ate away from the inside out, pulsating between tattered breaths until they were hollow and bare inside, their ageless lives dug out and dried up. It was a low, throbbing, thrumming kind of thing that started from the pits of their stomachs: pulsing, traveling slowly up, and squeezing ribcages and chests up to the throats. They'd retch and gag and gasp, the effect rattling their bodies, rattling their minds, brains bashing against cranium. Pain was a toxin that shrivelled their souls until their spirits broke away. And nobles were made of their souls. For their scanter range of emotions, pain _killed._

Gejutel K. Landegre recoiled.

In the open, marble-clad courtyard of the Landegre gardens, Gejutel's hand shot to his chest, scrunching his clothes under his dampening palm. A smidgen of a feeling had touched upon his mind.

Through the thicket of ever-green trees on the border of the Kertia's training territory, Rajak Kertia's mid-thrust faltered. His kartas dissolved. He slammed into the grounds, downing trees as he skidded inches-deep into the earth. When he stopped, he curled up, and winced.

Under the clear, cloudless skies of Lukedonia, Karias Blerster let in a sharp intake of breath. Amore, the bow and arrow, shuddered between his fingers, and Karias wrenched it back. He shot into the sky.

In the Mergas estate, Ludis Mergas clasped a hand to his mouth. Kei Ru jumped from his waterfall in the territories of Ru, closing his eyes. In the house of Elenor, Rosaria Eleanor threw her head into her hands, bending sickly over in her armchair.

Upon the great throne of Lukedonia's throne room, under the grandiose arches of the palace, the Lord opened her eyes. She opened them, wide.

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel-nim?" whispered Gejutel, from the courtyard.

The power of the Noblesse bled out before them.

"Raizel-nim…" Rajak shuddered, head in the dirt.

His mind had leapt open, unable to control itself with everything rushing and pushing and seizing in all directions.

Rael's legs gave out, and he muttered at the floor, _"Noblesse?"_

The Noblesse's power resonated. Hysterical vocal-cracks and sheer, dumbfounding nausea tore through like a wildfire laying waste to everything in its path. Spreading and tearing. They all heard it, clear as hell and louder than wars raging — his low voice ringing higher than any of them had ever heard, could ever imagine.

It was morose, more than they could bear, more grievous than they could understand. It was haunting, something they'd want to forget. His distress struck an irrevocable fear amongst the nobles. One by one, the Clan Leaders bowed their heads. Across Lukedonia, across the world, each noble bowed their head. Some crumpled to their knees. Some struck their fists to their chests. They could hear him, Cadis Etrama di Raizel. The ones who didn't know him were frightful; the ones who knew of him, saddened. Many who had only ever heard of his existence, heard his voice for the very first time. All the nobles of Lukedonia were gripped in a strange kind of fear.

The Lord stood from her throne. _"Cadis Etrama di Raizel?"_ Her voice shook too.

"He's crying," Gejutel explained from afar.

"Why?" Rajak whispered.

"Why else?" Gejutel said. "His bonded…he's dead."

They couldn't eve begin to fathom. It felt like the most excruciating thing a noble could possibly endure. They knew, but couldn't quite understand. Not a sliver of Frankenstein thrummed from the Noblesse's power. Turmoil drenched over the land, many lands far away, and his hurt was blaring. They bowed their heads, hearing one of their sovereigns fall and weep. Lukedonia bowed in his reverence.

* * *

 _Now:_

Tao, Takeo and M-21 got up and ran, passing Clan Leaders left and right without a second glance to Raizel. Regis pushed past Rael to get to Seira, and Rael quickly overtook him in the same direction.

"Raizel-nim?" Takeo called. _"Raizel-nim?"_ he croaked, this time hoarse. His throat became remarkably dry and tight. Suddenly, seeing tears roll off Raizel's cheek was like acquiring stab wounds — except more horrific, and the scars that it left would take a longer time to heal.

"Hey — _heyheyhey,_ " M-21 muttered beside him, bracing a much needed hand on his back, "hey, hey, _take_ -take a deep breath…" he scrambled to say, still breathing grittily himself.

Raizel walked forward, leaving the three behind. Blood drops were scattered all over his ruffled, white uniform, and he dirtied his sleeve by brushing away more tears. Nobody said a thing about it. The trio looked on, slowly computing the reality of things.

Frankenstein was gone. Tesamu had stolen his Dark Spear.

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel," Raskreia shifted, slanting Ragnarok against Tesamu, "So he is deceased. He was human, in the end. The one known as Frankenstein—"

"Human?" Lunark murmured. When all turned to glare at her, she straightened behind Tesamu. "You didn't see him in the end," she said slowly. "When he let himself be consumed by his own power, _human_ is not what I would have described him as."

Regis flared his nose, "You shut your mouth about the Chairman! How dare you befoul him! How dare you!"

Rael whacked Regis's arm, pulling him harshly backwards. "Shut it, Regis! Are you blind to the Lord's presence? You think _you_ can speak here?"

"Rael Kertia!" Rajak said shortly.

 _"Erga Kanesis di Raskreia…"_

Raizel's shaky voice drew all their attention the way a fading light did in the dark. "My bonded…is gone." His words leaked out, slow and steady like an oil spill. The statement stung the children more than they knew.

Raizel tilted his shoulder and held his head as high as he could. "I will have justice for Frankenstein. I will not let this go lightly. Dark Spear is in Tesamu's possession…but they are my duty, now that he is gone. I claim Dark Spear."

Tesamu untangled a finger from Dark Spear and clicked the bone under his thumb.

"And I sentence Tesamu to death," Raizel said, unblinking, words resolute.

"Is that right?" Tesamu murmured, "I hope you have enough energy to carry that out."

"Fear not. He will not be executing you," came a matter-of-fact voice.

Tesamu's eyes darted to the Lord.

"I will."

Raizel turned his back on Tesamu to look at Raskreia.

 _Raskreia…_

 _No. Yes, you are the Noblesse, yes this may be your duty…but don't try to pretend you just waited to die in that last attack. Don't try to pretend you had lost your will to live just then._

 _I will sentence Tesamu._

 _I do not care what you do with your grief. But I will carry out your order for you. We felt your soul scream, Cadis Etrama di Raizel. How much power can that soul of yours harness right now?_

 _Dark Spear is mine to claim. I will not let them fall into another's hands._

 _Fine. It is rightfully yours._

 _But I do not accept this. Tesamu's life is mine to—_

"Are you done?" Tesamu called. "It's considered quite rude. To speak telepathically before others, is—"

He was cut off. Dark Spear lurched up his arms. Tesamu moved as if to drop it, and winced. The Spear stayed in his grip, cloying and moving like hot wax. Then, looking up, he bore his contempt at the Lord. Lunark stood behind Tesamu, claws held at the ready, expecting to fight to the end. She'd accepted there was no way out.

"Don't you believe this is an unequal playing field now, Raizel?" Tesamu said, forcefully sticking Dark Spear into the dirt. His hand was just able to part. "What? Ten against two? Hardly fair, is it?"

Dark Spear cackled.

 _How the hell did Frankenstein fight with you?_

Tesamu spasmed, trying to hide how flimsy his control over Dark Spear really was.

Dark Spear tingled in response.

Raskreia shrugged her cape out of the way, tousled back her hair and patience. She stated her decree vehemently. "I am the Lord, Cadis Etrama di Raizel. And my word is final."

She didn't turn her head, but her voice changed to address the ones behind her. "Clan Leaders of Lukedonia."

The thuds of fist hitting chest was the loudest sound around her. "The Union and the enemy before us, Tesamu, has launched an attack on our right honourable Noblesse. This will be treated as a personal attack on Lukedonia, and will be dealt with profusely. Lukedonia will not abandon our Noblesse, or his bonded, whatsoever." Raskreia glimpsed Raizel's faraway face. She set her sword.

"We stand by you, Cadis Etrama di Raizel."

* * *

 _No._

Everything he'd ever worked for, clawed for, desperately struggled against a thousand unequal, unforgiving odds, were slipping out of his botched fingers. Bit by bit. Little by little. It was getting harder to breathe. He felt it — rigour mortis freezing up his rigid fingers, settling over his skin with an air of finality — was he dead? He wasn't dead, was he? How could he be dead? Though he was full of them: the dead.

Tesamu was outnumbered. He could not outrun his enemies.

He could not face the Lord _and_ the Noblesse.

Dark Spear screamed at him to finish this — **_kill him_** _,_ and he could feel it. Their treacherous powers rising up, both with him and against him, their heavy voices rebounding around the walls of his skull. Their pleas blared like flashes of light, like electricity crashing, making dark spots appear over his sight. And the longer he lingered, the less sane he became. It was a blitz.

But he couldn't die here. He couldn't die now. Not when everything he'd struggled for was right before his dehumanising eyes; if he just reached farther, let the ghouls come closer, tried a little harder — all he needed to do was strike Cadis Etrama di Raizel down.

He blocked out Lunark's voice behind him and gave in to Dark Spear's, narrowing down into tunnel vision. It was a simple task. He could still do this.

Tesamu made his decision.

* * *

"Stand back, Lunark."

Lunark swallowed, biting her lip. "There's nothing we can do. There's nothing…we can't escape this many enemies." Her voice was soft.

 ** _"We're not running,"_ ** Tesamu answered, his voice dangerous and grating. The spear in his hand crackled and the fire on it, and over his arms, his shoulders, danced up. Tesamu grit his teeth and groaned. His entire body was covered in Dark Spear except his head.

Tesamu smirked and charged. A booming sound crashed through the terrain. Raskreia dashed forward in response, the sword point of Ragnarok striking a rift through the atmosphere before her. Dark Spear clashed with Ragnarok. They were at a stalemate for a mere moment, cold ambers staring into glaring red, sending another wave of power coursing through the broken grounds. The collision sent them both skidding backwards, but Raskreia recovered in an instant. She stood her ground, swinging down her blade as Tesamu charged again. Each time the soul-forged Ragnarok hit the undead of Dark Spear, when royalty hit soul-rage, another wave shook the place. Another crater imprinted into the earth.

Tesamu was gasping desperately, fighting a battle on two fronts. Feral and noisy, Dark Spear chattered up within him, slowly taking hold of each faculty. He operated on reflex, flexing his body and swinging the spear wildly. He was erratic, the power starting to sear and suffocate, snuffing out his own hold on his body. It was uncanny, watching and feeling his body strike in ways he didn't intend to, like precise, knee-jerk reactions.

And it wasn't enough. Raskreia was too strong and steady, carefully blocking Dark Spear with expert swordsmanship. She could still be reckless with her attacks, but she knew how to wield Ragnarok like she knew Tesamu was not capable of drawing out the fight. Tesamu understood that the Lord used hand-to-hand combat where she could, because with one head-on strike from Ragnarok, she might decimate him into dust.

And as much as that would had solved their problems, the Lord knew Cadis Etrama di Raizel wanted that honour. As the Lord, she'd at least give the Noblesse that courtesy.

Raskreia parried the spear, shifted her weight to force Tesamu to defend, and then struck. Ragnarok sliced through, splitting Dark Spear into two. Tesamu's eyes widened as he flung himself backwards. He sneered, shoving the two pieces back together with all eyes upon him. They mended instantly with a surge.

Suddenly, a low whimper escaped Tesamu.

Raskreia halted her advance.

Tesamu was shaking, visibly now, weak-looking knees buckling and stifling as Tesamu tried to remain standing. Suddenly, something changed, and Tesamu rolled back his head in pain.

 _"St-stop."_

The berserk flames flickered backwards, receding back into his skin as the dark aura left him. In broken, jerky instances, Tesamu looked as if he had managed to jam Dark Spear away before they possessed him fully. When the moment passed, Tesamu stood weakly, leaning over to one side and body stripped to the waist.

Raskreia repositioned Ragnarok and furrowed her brows. "It's over, Tesamu. Elder of the Union, I take you under Lukedonia's arrest."

Tesamu didn't make a sound, only wavered on the spot. Dark Spear began to lurch apart, disappearing in a whirl-wind motion. They were gone.

"As a human who has committed great crimes against humanity and the Noblesse, I, the Lord, have the power to apprehend you." She lingered for a moment, watching his skin jump, watching his rapid breath rock him like electric shocks. He couldn't even move his head to look at her.

"Why did you murder Frankenstein," she stated flatly.

Tesamu stopped, tilted his head, and smiled. "You don't have the power to question me."

She remained motionless. "Do I not?" Raskreia lifted a hand, ready to compel him, but only a moment had passed when she dropped it again.

"I have apprehended you for the Noblesse's judgement. There is no need for me to come to force. I do not have power over you?" She scoffed, eyes narrowing. "Elder of the Union, you lost control of your own aura. Your powers betrayed you and receded. You _overestimate_ yourself."

"Do I?"

Raizel's bloodied eyes widened. Sudden recognition stabbed him awake and he jolted forward, reaching out to Raskreia through mind and voice —

 ** _"Raskreia!"_**

Raskreia only had a moment to react. Cracks had formed on the earth before Tesamu. A line of red, stalk-like tendrils rose from the ground, long coils reaching into the air and distancing Tesamu from the Clan Leaders.

 _"Lord!"_

"Lord!"

 _"-Keh,"_

Raskreia flung herself back, finding Gejutel and Rajak suddenly at her side. The tendrils mowed forward, meeting Ludis's shield as he conjured a barrier around the Lord and two Clan Leaders. Regasus and Kartas were held at the ready.

 **"Out of my way, Gejutel K. Landegre, Rajak Kertia, Ludis Mergas,"**

They heeded Raskreia's command without resistance. Raskreia pointed her blade. From the tip of Ragonorok came a revolving, fiery blast that shattered Ludis's barrier to meet the enemy force. Raskreia's power rolled over the foreign aura like a tornado, quashing it away.

She drew a breath and waved away Gejutel's and Rajak's concern. "This is…"

Gejutel balked. "It's _them."_

The dust of the collision wavered, revealing Tesamu as he walked forward. "You underestimate me, Lord. I decided to retract Dark Spear. There is no need for _me_ to use my power on you."

Tesamu blatantly, easily, turned his attentions from the Lord. His stare fell onto Raizel. Tesamu looked him stark in his eyes and smiled as sweetly as he could. "Welcome back, Ignes."

"Glad to be back, Faust."

"And my gratitude to you— "

Ignes lifted her hand. With a slight surge of power, she forcefully peeled back the layer of dust. A group of nobles and werewolves loomed from the smog, soul weapons drawn and standing ready behind Tesamu.

"—Lagus Tradio, Berserker Gradeus, Edian Drosia," he glanced over the werewolves, "Miss Kaiyo, Draikon." He paused. "…And I must admit I'm not yet acquainted with you."

The last werewolf frowned, ignoring him. He rushed over to Lunark's side, taking his hand off her shoulder when she shook her head to him.

"Kentas…"

"Don't speak, Lunark. Save your words for the Lord." Kentas quietened his voice, "I'm here to back you, not _him."_ Lunark nodded wearily, relaxing.

Tesamu continued to smile. "I didn't expect such a showing. My apologies for the sudden call to arms."

Lagus's black cane thudded against the ground, letting the power flow out from each drawn out step as he went to Tesamu and Ignes's side. "Oh, no, Zeroth Elder, it's our honour to come to the aid of our comrade. Ignes has carried out her order perfectly, you should thank her."

Ignes latched onto his arm, scowling at the Lukedonian nobles. Tesamu seemed to stiffen at her touch, lips quirking for second before he blanked his face again.

Lagus Tradio continued. "It's been a long time, Lord. Old friend."

Gejutel set his jaw. "Lagus Tradio."

Regasus tingled in his hold, and all of a sudden, he sympathised a lot with how hard it was for Frankenstein to back down in a fight. "You — _traitors to Lukedonia_ — dare turn your soul weapons upon the Lord and Noblesse?! This is sacrilege!" he cried bitterly.

Something hesitant flashed through Edian's eyes as Gejutel shouted. Her eyes flit to the lifeless Raizel, and her heart took a lurch. She didn't move. The twin rapiers of the Drosia clan glinted in the returning light, and Gradeus thumbed the axe-hilt of Messad before he swung it over his shoulder, playfully tapping the hilt against his neck.

"That's right, old man," Gradeus leered, "I only came for the show, but now that you mention it — yeah, I'd love to introduce Miss Lord to Messad."

Abruptly, Gradeus rocked back, narrowly missing a few bolts that would have sped clean though his body. He raised his brows, looking impressed as they disappeared. "Who was that?"

The all-seeing eye of Blood witch blinked. Rosaria put down her fingers. "I would learn how to hold my tongue before the Lord. You will not slander her in front of me."

"Elenor Clan Leader," Gradeus spoke, licking his lips, "If you want to see the definition of 'slander,' I'd suggest you—"

"I'd suggest you shut up, Gradeus. War god or not, Kei Ru will not let this stand!"

 **"Enough,"** Raskreia commanded.

The Clan Leaders nodded their heads in her direction.

She spoke, both hands clasped onto Ragnarok, Ragnarok wedged into the ground before her. Raskreia held herself with honour and dignity, standing straight and poised before her sword of Armageddon. "Traitors of Lukedonia, I will not hesitate to give the order for your destruction. I will not hesitate to sentence you for your treason."

It was a light, sure kind off speech that came from her. There wasn't a shred of energy emanating from Ragnarok, but all eyes were on Raskreia — the enhanced humans, nobles and werewolves. Raizel listened to her decree.

"But now is not the time. I digress. Today, you will hand over Faust, Tesamu, the Zeroth Elder — and whatever other aliases he may go by — to me. He is under Lukedonian custody now. And will I count this day's matter as resolved."

At this, Tesamu's coppery eyes glazed over again, malice lapping over them like fire.

"That is my offer."

"That is an ultimatum, Lord," Lagus replied.

"I am quite aware," Raskreia answered, hands still rested over Ragnarok comfortably.

Lagus shot a wry smile. "And if we refuse?"

"Then my Clan Leaders will leave your soul weapons without inheritors," she remarked. At this, Gradeus twitched. Rajak's hand flung up urgently, tugging at the mask over his mouth. Gejutel held Regasus, stalwart and prideful.

M-21, Takeo and Tao stood by Raizel, tired but spellbound by the intensity between the two sides. _So this was the Lord?_

Lagus turned to Tesamu. "What should we do, Zeroth Elder?" he asked politely.

Tesamu was still wavering from the aftereffects of the spear. His smiled drooped, morphing into a dazed, careless look. "We—"

"FIGHT!" Gradeus shouted over him.

Messad was flung over their heads, landing in the no man's land between the two groups and shattering the peace. Gradeus zipped forward, tugging Messad out of the dirt as he advanced towards the Lord. Raskreia immediately drew Ragnarok from its rest, clashing with Messad in mid-air as she lunged forward.

But Gradeus was a noble on the equivalent of death-row. She didn't hesitate to twist her wrist and force a red pool of power to obliterate him. It sounded like a bomb detonation, the powers of Ragnarok released over the land. Gradeus was hit once, full body immediately reacting to the damage and an aura-induced delirium laced over his pale skin, his spiteful eyes.

The moment he recovered, Rajak flounced before him, sliding Kartas through the air to slit his shoulders. Blood spurted and Gradeus danced around, cleaving Messad though the air in hasty strokes.

Edian leapt forward, thrusting the needle-points of her twin rapiers at the Lord. Ludis's shield met her attack, and he pushed her back before she nicked his cheek over the shield. Ludis blocked her next attack with the long dagger. Edian's sword strokes crashed over the shield, and she spun to deal a blow. An arrow head diverted her sword away, making her recoil. Karias opened his one closed eye, letting another arrow materialise on Amore.

The werewolves moved. Kei Ru bought a fist to the ground, upheaving it in shattered blocks as Draikon neared him. Kaiyo came up behind him only to be struck by Rosaria's blood magic.

Gejutel thrust forward his colossal lance, funnelling the air away before Lagus Tradio. "You're going to have to fight me with all you have got, old friend. I cannot fathom who is more willing to strike you down, myself, or Regasus!"

Lagus pounded his black cane into the ground, sending forth a tide of red tendrils to drill the earth and enclose Gejutel.

Regis flinched at Seira's side. _"Gaju-nim?!"_

The tip of Regasus emerged from the encirclement. Then a blast emitted from within the tendrils, blowing the entire manifestation apart.

* * *

Noble fought noble and werewolves battled Clan Leaders. Ringing with the sounds of weapon hitting weapon, a low, rumbling, bombastic percussion that spit fire and red in wild, erratic sparks, each colliding aura deafened the humans. The pressure was suffocating. The air grew heavy. The power that threatened to disintegrate the land was cataclysmic.

But it was barely a skirmish lasting a minute.

Raizel arched his neck, forcing his bloodied eyes alight, and they emanated with a harsh, imposing glow. He swallowed back everything — his wants and needs and wishes, doing the thing he hated, was hated for and designed for — letting the full majesty of his being shroud over every noble and werewolf.

The air grew frigid.

All battles ceased within the moment, shaking arms and tightening muscles spasming to a sudden stop, mid-motion. All of the nobles turned to him, surprised eyes searching for the source of the interruption, the brevity of the moment falling away just as quick as it had come. Even the children beside him, made frail with the same dawning that he had, buckled without resistance. They fell prey to his power, confused and relenting. He loathed this.

"Erga Kanesis di Raskreia," Raizel's voice whispered into the heads of all, intruding where he had the authority to intrude. He made his fragile command. "Lukedonia. Nobles. Look to your side, and see the city."

Raskreia withdrew Ragnarok, pointing catastrophe towards the ground. The human city was still far away, but the peripheries of their collision were spreading, the destruction ebbing farther and farther from the epicentre. There was no way to keep this battleground discrete now, anyway. Humans were in danger.

"This battle cannot be allowed to go on. It must end here, or millions of lives will be lost." Raizel sucked in a tedious breath, chunky and slow and the children shuddered at the trouble he had with it. "Lord," he spoke, "please end this now."

Raskreia nodded. She set her sight on the traitors. Her eyes fluttered shut, and without the slightest air of change, she relinquished Ragnarok. Following her example, Gejutel pulled back Regasus, pulling it out of existence. Kartas dissolved as Rajak swung them one last time. All the Clan Leaders dematerialised their soul weapons.

Lagus Tradio set his black cane to the side, motioning his orders to the traitor nobles. Edian immediately stood down, turning her grip over the twin rapiers into a backhand hold, before they too disappeared. Gradeus spun his head around, glaring daggers. All the spite he had harboured redirected to Lagus.

"Lagus — Why! We can take them! We—"

"Stand down, Gradeus. The Noblesse is right. This is not the time." Lagus huffed, disregarding Gradeus. "And you were saying, Zeroth Elder?"

Tesamu took one last look at Raizel.

"We retreat."

Loftily, simply, he turned away like the whole ordeal was dreary and boring. Beneath him. "We all pack up and go home. Both sides. That's fair, isn't it? Or if they wish to jump us while our backs are turned, we fight. The only thing at stake is a tiny little town, am I wrong?"

Tesamu let Ignes lead him away, eyeing Lunark slowly as he passed. "And that's nothing to fret about, now, is it?"

Raskreia watched them leave, a muscle working in her brow as she let the traitors of her people walk away unscathed. Cadis Etrama di Raizel had to summon up everything to relay that last message. Raskreia turned to see him, but Raizel only shook his head.

"I wish…to go home."

That was all he said.

Raskreia left him in Korea.

* * *

Tao was scared.

He felt like a speck, an uncamouflaged moth beating its thin wings against a hurricane. Maybe it was because the Lord was there; someone Regis and Seira — the strongest people he knew apart from the house owner and his master — regarded like a word that lost its meaning if you said it too many times. When the Lord's name was bought into anything, that was intense. The only one who ever dared to speak her name was the Noblesse, and even he held her in the most highest of regards. _But then again he held Tao in high regard…_

Not only the Lord, but her and her posse of horseman — hell, his housemate was technically the God of Death — but he was glad that they came. He wanted them to crush that Union Elder, Faust, Tesamu, _or whatever the fuck else his name was,_ crush him and grind his soul into dust _because nobles probably could do that_ , and be done with it.

He was scared because he felt alright, for a moment, with all those powerful, untouchable creatures there. But when he looked back on it now, it bought a tug in his chest, a brow of cold sweat. They barely brushed soul weapons. Just how close had it been, to have the entire city buried under rubble? How close had they been, to never ever seeing Ikhan, Shinwoo, Yuna or Suyi again?

Tao shuddered, throat dry.

 _Blast it all_ — why think of those horrible things, when he was never going to see the Boss again?

* * *

Notes:

I was debating about whether I should leave that part with Tao^ in. But whatever, take more Tao.

Just to be clear - Franken was NOT bowing to Muzaka...he was doing exactly as it sounded - just speaking to the floor and not looking at him.

So, General Zargon - Tesamu was basically as strong as Frankenstein in his prime (before he took Dark Spear). Now he also has Dark Spear - but - Frankenstein had always had trouble with Dark Spear. The nobles showing up is explained here but...w-who is guarding Lukedonia? XD My explanation is that Rosaria used her blood magic and transported them via portal to Raizel's side. Since they left Lukedonia and came here so fast, there's no possible leeway for attack. (Besides, the major baddies are at the battlefield so it's ok). You rock, thanks General!

nobody yet - HA! I updated this one! This one wasn't as sad as it could have been though. Luckily Raskreia's here to break some tension with Power and regal Sass.

Elims - Who are you Elims, you're always here and so lovely I love you. Y-yes...because Rai's the noblesse I imagined that his mental powers are immense. And because other nobles can communicate by being super emphatic with other nobles, I made it so that nobles are more likely to be affected. The humans like M-21, Takeo and Tao aren't getting hit as hard since Rai isn't directing it at them. But the nobles are mind-powered so...it's not...fun. I'm SO glad you liked the multiple perspectives from the last chapter though! The confusion that was meant to cause was supposed to be deliberate.

The Midnight Cat of the Dark - /internally hugging you and squeezing away your breath/ *I'll console you

Laryna - Franken wasn't like...marching up into his room to straight up murder him lol. He found about that he was a spy and immediately went to _look_ at him. Just to see. He couldn't believe and didn't want to, he really just wanted to see the face of his betrayer. And that's when he gets an intrusive thought that goes "y'know. The Smart thing to do would be to kill'em." But NO. Yep - Rai has no idea what DS did. But also, it was already a long shot. The average human would not survive a break from a noble contract. It's for life. He might even just have been kidding himself to go find him. Like that time with Roctis - a break of the bond means death. I'M GLAD YOU LIKED THE MIDDLE PART. Thank you.

Kaikouken - I...I think I'll answer you on tumblr later...this chapter wordcount is already sooo stuffed XD Anyhow, I read your review and DIED laughing and crying. Yes, the fic has worked. I have accomplished. Good work. *pats self on back.

Madame aZure- "Raskreia will slap the sadness out of Raizel." omG. Quality line, this. But it's kind of true - she's sort of distracting him and going in to do business over all else. Like, "Stop being sad, noblesse. Look, watch me splatter your enemies over this field. C'mon, Rai."

Full Flashback chapter next time before we return to the storyline. Thank you so much for your reviews and support everybody, they keep me going :D

\- earl


	23. Enigma

Thanks, brissygirl

* * *

 **Unspecified time**

 **1000+ years ago,**

 **Lukedonia**

Enigma.

For the first couple years, it was business. A transaction. It was a vague, awkward greeting in the morning, a quiet nod of the head at night. He spent his time minding his own business, tending to his wounds, calculating and recalculating his next steps, and cleaning. _What? Someone has to do the cleaning,_ he told himself, looking through the crack in the door with a pail of water in his hands. Standing there, dumb and still, the noble looked like a stray dog: waiting for a handler to come and pick him up, or at least have the decency to put him put him out of that misery. If he was going to stand there, Frankenstein thought, he might as well stand there with a clean room. Frankenstein wiped down the dusty surfaces, beckoned the noble to step back far enough and long enough for him to wipe the window. The noble thanked him quietly, visibly flustered, and then resumed his staring. Frankenstein walked away and that was that.

For the first couple of years, it was like living in another bunker of his. Except there was luxury everywhere he turned, wealth and grandeur in wherever he felt like staying that particular night. He picked from the hundred and five rooms and settled in the ninety ninth in the furthest of the west wing. He paced in the night and slept-in in the mornings, made use of the kitchens and continued penning his journals. Whispers of a prisoner fell on his ears, that the man in the mansion held a captive within his walls, depriving a poor sod of their freedom. He checked every single one of the hundred and five rooms before he realised — the nobles' rumours were about him. It wasn't a revelation. It wasn't even a comforting thought. It was just a fact.

The noble did nothing at all to stop him from straightening out the old books on his shelf, the pillows on the couches. He certainly did nothing at all to stop him from coming and leaving as he pleased, though that was his house. Strangely, Frankenstein felt like _he_ lived in the house more than the noble; after all, he was the one keeping it from falling apart, he was the one eating and sleeping in it. The noble just stood there, as if he were the guest to his own mansion.

For the next couple years, it was like taking care of a shy child. Frankenstein acquired tea leaves, and when he sat down in sitting-room eleven, savouring the aroma of French earl grey, a thought popped into him. Just out of the deep blue. He fumbled an extra cup and saucer on a silver tray he found stuffed somewhere in the main kitchen, and balanced the lot into the noble's room. _Because cur non — why not?_ If he was going to just stand there, he should stand there with tea. It was a simple gesture, and he repeated it often. _Be kind,_ at least, _be considerate;_ the noble let him board here for nothing in return. _Yet._ He was ready for when that silver penny would drop. Always ready for that foot to be put down on his back. If he wasn't malicious, he was stupid. Frankenstein watched him tentatively reach out for a cup, reaching for something that was far off limits. He looked like a child, honestly, giving a little rebellious smile. _How dangerous, to take something from a mere human._ Frankenstein thought wrong.

But nevertheless, when Frankenstein fanned the oven, wafting the smell of sweet dough around twenty six rooms, he cut some up on a plate to feed the noble. He found himself wanting to see the noble's reactions, tasting new things, looking at new options, battling within himself to ask questions — _What is that? What is this? How can this be? That is so salty._ He liked to take his time deciding whether he wanted cream or jam on his scone. _Fluffy white stuff or sticky, fruity stuff?_ Frankenstein thought it was sweet. Then he frowned, twitched a little, and blanked his face. This man was still a noble, one of great, great power, judging by the way the Clan Leaders bowed so easily, how the cavalry talked. And the rumours were enough to send him into a fit of giggles. And Frankenstein never giggled. What was he to them? The Bogeyman?

 _Beware the Jabberwock, my son!_

 _The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!_

 _Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun_

 _The frumious Bandersnatch!_

The noble liked four and three quarter spoons of sugar in his beverages. He was not a terribly good monster.

For the next, next couple years, he went out often. He played rough. His playdates with Ragar and Gejutel flattened forests and chipped mountainsides; he came back bruised, bloodied, with a few cracked ribs and battered organs. No biggie. But he found the noble staring at him once. Not in that blank, secluded kind of way, like he was always afraid of doing the slightest thing wrong — _hell, what did Frankenstein care?_ — but in a way that made Frankenstein feel infinitely guilty for not checking in earlier with some tea or something. But when he set the teapot down in front of him, the noble's eyes didn't shift from him. Didn't so much as graze the pot. Did he hate jasmine tea or Frankenstein all of a sudden? He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then opened it, smiled meekly, then frowned accidentally, looking utterly perturbed. It was unsettling. Frankenstein finally noticed his mistake and, against his better judgement, apologised with equal aloofness, _Sorry, I'll get the blood out of the carpet. I won't come in next time I'm like this._ And the noble looked like Frankenstein had punched him in the gut.

One time, he'd camped out in the wood rather than let Ragar know he'd punctured his lung. _(It's fine, I'm fine. Hah.)_ Frankenstein came back to the mansion to see the noble sitting in the _first_ sitting room, five floors down from his beloved window.

"What's wrong?"

"You're back?" the noble said. He wasn't gone that long. Where did the noble think he went?

"Yes."

"…Are you hurt?"

"No."

Frankenstein wondered why he looked so miffed. "Is something the matter? If you're tired, you should retire to one of your rooms. They're all clean. If you're wondering. Or, food and drink?"

"I am fine, Frankenstein."

"Alright."

Frankenstein noted down all the discrepancies in his behaviour, and couldn't work out this complicated equation. What in tarnation was up with him?

* * *

The noble entered his mind. _How dare he enter his mind?_

But that was not his fault, Frankenstein concluded. How rude he'd being, forcing his own insecurities on the unsuspecting noble, robbing him of his quiet nights. Is was his own fault for spilling his mind all over him. _Hell_ , he was so embarrassed. This noble gave him sanctuary, gave him privacy and respected his will. Someone who was equal with the Lord, he had deduced. And the pattern didn't make sense, the logic was all wrong — Raizel was so humble, with his feet always together and hands plastered at his side, like he was trying to take up the smallest amount of space as possible. Poor sod. _What?_ Frankenstein lay awake on silken sheets, pondering the enigma. Something to keep his head distracted before tossing and turning in sleep. Only — he didn't need to toss and turn in his sleep anymore. Raizel had decreed that away. Why did the noble shut himself inside the mansion? He was equal to the Lord, wasn't he? Frankenstein figured he was probably a nuisance, a random human sullying Raizel's good standing with his kind and marring the floorboards with ugly blood. Raizel was just too much of a push-over to tell him to get the hell out of his house. He wished Raizel would just find the simple two-three words and force him out already. There was no need for that torture.

When did he start thinking of him as _Raizel?_

Frankenstein agreed with the Clan Leaders on one account: the landlord deserved to addressed as Raizel- _nim._ He deserved his respect and morning greetings — because he decimated every single preconception Frankenstein had internalised about nobles. Yes, some were arrogant, impossible pricks, but then again so was he and that was part of humanity. Nobles weren't all _that_ different after all. There was the good kind and the bad kind. Ragar and Gejutel and the Lord were 'good,' he admitted begrudgingly. Raizel-nim was some kind of untouchable saint. _What in the world?_ He wished the noble was sterner, sterner and tougher and more assertive — at this rate, he'd kick himself out of his own house to give Frankenstein more space if he'd asked.

For the years that came later, he talked. He found that Raizel was a good listener, and he wasn't just humouring him or tolerating chatter. He liked listening to his one-sided conversation, liked hearing of his travels overseas to exotic lands and alien hamlets, curing strange diseases and learning new languages. Frankenstein had taught himself Lukedonian so he could insult nobles to the fullest — make them understand, in their own words, how they wrecked their planet. But he was wrong. And now he was glad he learnt it; he was able to question Raizel-nim about the trials and tribulations of time, the long-lost past of Lukedonia and history before mankind ever began to record. Raizel-nim remembered a time where there was no need for boats or rickety ships, because once, he told Frankenstein, the world was one big mass of land on sea. Raizel-nim remembered a time where the highest art form was the carving of figures on cave walls. He used to stare at them in awe, critique the works a mere fifty years after they'd been drawn. Raizel-nim remembered a time where mankind had just discovered fire, and he could only agree that it was beautiful, that it was alluring, that humans learnt to do such cool things with fire and danger.

Frankenstein taught Raizel-nim his language, because he insisted. He found he already knew a lot, because Frankenstein thought in it, but it was no less endearing. Raizel needed something to stimulate his brain, he wasn't stupid or apathetic, he was just so…deprived. So Frankenstein conversed with him in latin, in slavic languages and asian dialects, taught him all the fancy things he knew. He got him to learn the table of elements, for some reason. Though Raizel assured him he liked to learn.

Frankenstein told him of his life, of his troubles in the human world, the destruction his supposed 'genius' had caused and admitted all the mistakes he committed. The things he withheld from the world like his life depended on it — it did, in actuality — he gave it freely to Raizel-nim. If it pleased him, if he so wanted it, then it was his. Frankenstein wanted to give, because Raizel gave him _so_ much for nothing in return. Frankenstein began to fill up Raizel-nim's shelf with history as-seen-through-his-pretty-red-eyes; Raizel-nim beckoned him to tell more tales of his youth.

Frankenstein's heart saddened, because Raizel-nim couldn't really remember his own youth, if it was any different from his present. Frankenstein wished he could have come here earlier, invaded this foreign land a century earlier, many centuries earlier, and brave the solitude with Raizel-nim. He calculated that he was a mere speck in terms of Raizel-nim's life, and he worked to prolong his life even more. Because who else was going to brew Raizel-nim's oolong tea? Who else would know Raizel liked strawberries on his cake? Who else was going to beckon him to eat his broccoli and brussel sprouts, make sure that he had five-plus a day? The Clan Leaders certainly wouldn't. The Lord might try, but Frankenstein had more luck convincing Raizel-nim than that meddling old bugger.

Many years later, Frankenstein pushed open the doors to Raizel-nim's room to find him missing. He knew his eccentricities, every quirk and quip, every solemn frown, soft sigh and brow raise; Raizel-nim wouldn't leave his room without reason. He scoured Lukedonia, heart threatening to beat out of his chest for no reason — Raizel-nim didn't have to tell him where he went, Raizel-nim didn't have to give him a single thing. _Alright,_ Frankenstein had admitted it a couple years ago now: he worried for Raizel-nim. He might be just a teeny, tiny, slight-bit protective of the embodiment of power.

A stupendous, obtuse, witless second-in-command of the Central Knights decided _whoopy-doo_ he wanted to rebel and cut into Raizel-nim's bird-watching time. The Lord was present, the Clan Leaders were there, there was quite an audience assembled around the piece-a-shit. The noble in question had murdered three dozen Lukedonians, broke the Lord's decrees and was now blocked by Frankenstein's landlord. He heard the Lord say, "Raizel, are you quite sure?"

And Raizel-nim answered, "I am the Noblesse. This is my duty." The Clan Leaders squirmed uncomfortably. The other nobles trembled; some looked away, wriggled out of the crowd. No one dared look Raizel-nim in his weary eyes.

 _"Kneel."_

The criminal noble fell to his knees. Raizel-nim's eyes began to glow.

"NO!"

Frankenstein burst from the cavalry, panting a bit. Raizel-nim stopped immediately, looking utterly perplexed.

"Frankenstein?" He shuffled on the spot, very disturbed by his presence. "I — _uh —_ I did not mean to concern you. Go back to the house. I will return presently."

The Lord looked at Frankenstein with his mouth thinly parted. Frankenstein fully ignored him.

"Please," he said to Raizel-nim, disregarding all the noble eyes on him, "Don't use your power."

"Frankenstein…this is my duty. This is what I do." He said it like a confession.

"I know! _I know, I know,_ but…" Raizel's eyes lit up with a strange kind of light, every line in his face creasing in emotion. He was speechless. The crowd was silent. Even the criminal was staring in confusion. "You'll be hurting yourself. You shouldn't do this," Frankenstein said.

It occurred to Frankenstein that this was not proper conduct, that this was rude and demeaning. He was embarrassing Raizel-nim in front of everyone — all the people he cared too much about. But — _fuck it_ — if being an utter embarrassment was going to save Raizel-nim from tallying away his life force, so be it. He would take the heat anytime. He would gladly be his fool.

"There is no need for your concern. Please wait, Frankenstein." Raizel-nim offered him a smile. False as it was, but big and beaming and deliberate. Frankenstein gritted his teeth.

"Frankenstein! You humans need to know when to keep out of noble business! Get back!" came the voices, shrill and loud. "This isn't a place for you to speak, Frankenstein."

"You have to leave — right now."

"You're despicable, to question the Noblesse—"

And "Frankenstein, this isn't the time," came the softer, gentler ones, "Wait a minute, I'll explain everything when—"

 ** _Frankenstein,_**

 ** _Why do you do this to yourself?_**

"Let me!" Frankenstein said over them all, stepping towards Raizel-nim. "Let me," **_Let you?_** "Let me do this for you." He kept his eyes locked on Raizel-nim's, watching his expression smile and sadden, smile and sadden.

"Allow me to carry out this sentence for you. I can do it. It won't be detrimental for me."

Raizel-nim looked robbed of his breath. Frankenstein, a thief in his own right, only waited for his answer.

"He's human! He doesn't have the authori-"

"— Frankenstein, you can't…it won't be legal."

Frankenstein sighed. "Shut up. It'll be completely ' _legal,'"_ he sneered mockingly. He disregarded them all.

Frankenstein stepped in between the criminal and Raizel-nim. He made his plea with the Noblesse, walked up to the executioner, and slowly, carefully, knelt down on one knee. Frankenstein took Raizel-nim's hand in his and spoke.

"Please, Master, allow me to do this in your place."

The Lord smiled and looked away. Ragar and Gejutel understood in the same moment. The nobles stared in disbelief.

 _"What did he call him?"_

 _"You've bonded?"_ whispered a Clan Leader.

 _"How could you bond with-with…"_

 ** _we curse you_**

Frankenstein ignored them all. "Permit me, Master."

All waited for the Noblesse's verdict.

"…No, Frankenstein."

Frankenstein's face fell. He clutched Raizel's hand harder, ruthlessly sending his emotions to him, hoping to change his mind. "Master, reconsider—"

"Stand down, Frankenstein."

That was an order, wasn't it?

He'd never given him an order before, though they'd been bonded for quite a while now.

Frankenstein's last hope crushed. "My Lord…don't…"

 _"Stand down,_ Frankenstein." Raizel gently removed his hand.

Frankenstein had failed. He nodded, got up, and stepped out of his way.

He stood there, watching Raizel spend his precious life carrying out another sentence; another weight added onto his conscience. Frankenstein felt worthless, unable to help Raizel where it mattered the most. Frankenstein felt horrible that he was one of those people who had drawn Raizel's blood, made him use his power. He wanted to be his shield and sword, but Raizel kept him sheathed and stowed, away at his side like a treasure that should never be used.

He wanted to be useful to Raizel, but Raizel didn't want him to be.

The crowd dispersed, and he walked Raizel back to the mansion.

* * *

"Frankenstein," Raizel called after they'd settled into their seats. Neither of them had touched their warm cups.

"Yes, Master?"

"Thank you."

"Huh?" _For what?_ This might have been the thousand and seventh time he'd felt completely lost in the wake of Raizel's short sentences.

"For trying to stop me. No one has ever…" Raizel paused, overwhelmed by the aroma of the tea, the cackling fire, the lit candles, _Frankenstein._

"Master?!" Frankenstein got up, wavering. Was he bleeding? Was he dizzy? Should he have escorted him to sleep? "Master, how do you feel?"

"I…I don't know," Raizel replied. He looked up suddenly, like he'd forgotten Frankenstein had started addressing him in that way. "I've never — _felt like this before."_

Frankenstein waited for any explanation he might give, worry and confusion weeding it's way in his mind and flowering with the worst kinds of ideas. If he'd made Cadis Etrama di Raizel feel ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated, if he was defiled or dishonoured because of Frankenstein…

Dark Spear did not deserve a meal so vile as he.

"No one has ever tried to protect me," Raizel managed to say. He turned to him, making the world revolve, just for that instant, around Frankenstein in those red eyes. He smiled sadly. "I don't need your protection, Frankenstein."

"You're dying," Frankenstein said flatly.

"Yes. But that is the fate of all living beings in this world. Spending my life by using my power — that has always been the fate of the Noblesse."

"I don't care, _Master._ " Frankenstein stiffened. All that self-control nailed into his body by the running and the hiding and Dark Spear — in the end, all it took was one, measly Raizel-nim to chisel it all down to nothing. And he did it all the while by making it look so _easy._ Frankenstein continued, "I don't believe in fate. You contracted with me. Right now, I am yours. Do you remember the terms of our contract?"

"You may have anything you want. Simply _staying by my side,_ is too small a request. Anything you desire — if it's within my power, it is yours."

But that was already more than enough for Frankenstein. Frankenstein needed to remind him — he was a selfish man.

"Yes. I bid everything I had, _which I know might not be much,_ but I bid _everything_ to stay by your side. If you die, I can't do that, can I?"

Raizel fell into quiet. It stretched on for what seemed like a long time.

"…Forgive me," Frankenstein said, dipping his head and shoulders. "Forgive me."

"No," Raizel said. "You are right."

Frankenstein exhaled, the tenseness starting to evaporate. He smiled back. It was blasphemous, sacrilegious — completely, inanely profane — how he had been _so wrong_ about Cadis Etrama di Raizel.

"Thank you, Frankenstein. Your words mean more to me than you know."

And those words meant more to Frankenstein than he might have known.

Frankenstein had cracked that enigma code. After all those years, there honestly was someone on this green earth who was just _that compassionate._

It seemed incredible to him, and yet, it was real.

* * *

Notes:

I'm sure you noticed a bit of Lewis's Carroll's 'Jabberwocky' poem (from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872) inserted in the middle there~

A thing - Dark Spear only started calling Frankenstein "Professor" after they found out it bothered him. So after Faust showed up and after the dream in 'Memory Lane,' it stuck. Tumblr readers might have seen this chapter floating around but I made a couple of tweaks. It almost didn't make the cut - I was about to put it under 'extras.' Which reminds me - I posted an extra scenes fic to accompany this one, "A Strange Man Comes To Town."

Enigma is also the sister chapter to Nightmare for Two, one from Rai's pov, the other from Franken's. Savour Franken's pov guys...it's not coming back very soon...

general zargon - I surprised myself writing Raskreia, she was so fun to do. My favourite line is legit "or I'll leave your soul weapons without inheritors" like...I was not ready for me writing that line ahahahah. Hmmmm I can't say anything else, but the favour is probably a lot more mundane than you think. From now on, we go to the aftermath and how the household deals with Franken gone ;_; Thank you so much 3

Laryna6 - Gejutel...while I don't really linger on him he must be torn up oh my gosh. Raskreia, while her relationship with Rai is so-so, she knows how much Franken meant to him. But it did take her to 'slap Rai out of the Sads,' as a reviewer put it. Ignes going away and showing up with back up - glad you caught it. "And Tesamu, who had become a spy to take down the Traitor of Humanity, became the Traitor of Humanity himself. The End." I can't take this because you predict everything alsdfjaldhlwkgn. Yes, yes yes - "home" isn't alright anymore. For a long time, "home" wasn't his mansion, and it isn't even their Modern Suburban South Korean house. (Something about Franken's 'modern aesthetic' in his house just amuses me heheh. Like, the trendy decorations and minimalist stuff...I know it's just webtoon backdrop but eeheehh. Nice rug, Franken. Nice lights, Franken. Nice art on the walls, Franken. You had fish in the background once, where did that go? And this is a huge tangent back to the point) Home is Rai for Franken and home is Franken for Rai. Once Rai realises that 'going home' isn't a thing anymore...more on this later.

Elims - The favour *ominous music.* You're right though, Raskreia going to let Rai grieve in Korea, the place that he'd come to love, is really terribly sweet. "Tesamu you've done a wonderful job of becoming the evil equivalent of Franken's old Kingpin position leading the Union as you do. Now die." this should be the caption for the next half of the fic. Yeeep, this is going to take more than a few chapters to resolve XD Thank you, Elims~

The Midnight Cat of the Dark - You're...you're welcome. I hope this chapter patches you up a bit. It's a softer one.

c and butterfly - M-21 and Tao jumping out to do stuff...poor poor kids. Kids who are older than me, but still. So glad you liked the fight!

nobody yet - I'm pretty sure Rai doesn't really want to revisit any of those memories ;_; No, nobody yet, pure torture is the next chapters. XD What I mean to say is, things are going to slow down now, the aftermath of the big battle is a low one before we pick the pace back up. Think of this chapter as an interlude!

Madame aZure - Rai's pain reverberating in the nobles and reader's mind? Oh Nooo. I'm sorry Madame azure XD Dark spear is still going to be Dark Spear no matter who has them. But there's going to be conflict because Dark Spear is very obviously obsessed with Franken - and Tesamu, no matter what he does or how he acts, is not Franken.

pizza-with-me-okay - I hope this chapter can be categorised as fluff. It feels a little intense for fluff but it's a happy one, in the end. Hope you like

qdeanna and daylight-star - hi (heart emoji)


	24. In the Wake

Disclaimer: this has no affiliation with actual Noblesse

* * *

 **In the Wake**

 _The freak storm that has ravaged the city three weeks ago has raised many baffling questions for meteorologists and weather professionals across the country. Many experts from foreign connections are hoping to study the strange allegations this has caused, which, as of now, have been found no where else in the world._

 _Out of line with previously predicted weather patterns, such adverse rainstorm conditions seem a far cry from normal. The sudden weather change was_ _caught by fully-functional satellites in a course of a so-called, long dry spell._ _Is this the start of a global phenomenon, or are human activities creating unforeseen consequences?_

 _On a safety note, officials are beckoning citizens to stay indoors while storm conditions remain on high alert, whil—_

M-21 shut off the TV, throwing the house into silence again. He lounged back on the couch, wincing when he stretched his wounds. His top half was bound over with bandages and his arm was suspiciously out of its sling.

This wasn't new to him.

He remembered when he lost his comrades. It hurt, hurt badly, ferociously, like an open gaping wound that tore apart a little wider each time another unstable M-series hit cold, fibreglass floor. The first time it happened, it was after an experiment, a particularly exhausting one that drained and drained his energy, sucked his vitality from him until he was on the verge of death before it was all shoved back into him. He waddled to the exit on the shoulder of M-26, when M-17 slammed into the floor behind them. He was still so young, back then. He might not even have understood what was happening. But when Union soldiers pried his hands off of '17, threw him backwards into '24 and '26, he knew when they dragged '17 away, he'd never see him again.

M-19 used to wear glasses. M-21 always marvelled at the fact that they'd let him keep them. But then, when he heard the slight shatter of glass and plastic one training session, he couldn't forget that dull kind of horror than stole his breath. The M-series were an experimental train wreck in the end. M-21 watched as all his companions dropped dead right before his eyes, one by one. When M-18 went, he had blood pouring from his mouth. When M-19 went insane, he had tried to attack M-21. When M-20's skin turned white and his eyes went yellow, when M-22's hair fell out and heart gave out, M-21 was ready. M-21 counted down. Slowly, strenuously, through sore, grit teeth and dry eyes, furled hands and rigid shoulders, M-21 counted down until all that was left of the M-series was '21, and '24.

He remembered when he lost M-24. The last one who had shared the same horrific experiences and experiments as him, the last thing he had in a cold and unforgiving world, was taken from him like they took his name from his brain. He remembered waking up, expecting M-24 to be by his bedside and smile, hit him on the shoulder, make a quick remark. He imagined he'd knock on the door, any door, and let himself in, _'21, you brooding again? '21, you stress me out._ M-24 haunted him, and M-21 didn't want it to stop. M-21's only had a short decade of memories, and '24 was part of every single moment in that.

Even now, it still hurt to think of M-24.

What was going to happen now, he wondered, lounging on the couch. M-21 rested his arm over his eyes, shutting out the last thing he had said before his last encounter with Frankenstein. Naturally, it was all he could think of.

 _"Professor Frankenstein,"_ he muttered, alone in the room _._ _"Professor Frankenstein."_ He felt rebellious, just saying it now, low and muffled like a school child flaunting a bad-word like a badge. Professor, Professor, Professor. _Professor Frankenstein._ M-21's fingers dug into his forehead as he rubbed the vulgar word away. Why the hell did he have to say that to him?

What did it fucking matter what he said to him?

He needed to wrap his thick head around it — Frankenstein was gone the way M-17, M-18, M-19, M-20 and M-24 and the rest of the goddamned M-series was _gone._

 _His apprentice called him that, right? Fau — Tesamu. Why else would he hate it?_

And suddenly, everything was too ugly, too dirty, too mocking to stand. M-21 frowned, shooting his eyes open, and with a surge of rage, bought his fist down onto the glass table. It didn't shatter, only cracked it straight to the frame. _"Keugh!"_

What was he supposed to do now? Who was going to pay his salary? Who was going to do the shopping? Run the school? Find _him?_

He was angry.

M-21 snagged his hand back to himself the second the make-shift door was pushed off its hinges, opened again. The household shuffled in.

"What the? What is this, M-21?"

"What?"

"The table?!" Regis growled immediately, baring his teeth. "I'm asking you, what did you do to the table?"

"Isn't it obvious? I acquainted it with my fist," M-21 answered monotonously.

"M- _21!"_ Regis was offended, _"I'll acquaint you with my—"_

"Oh shut _up_ , Regis! You're going to pounce like an animal on a wounded modified human? Reached a new low, have we?" It was Rael's voice that cut through, and he and Regis stared at each other with an unadulterated hate.

M-21 rolled his eyes. "And what are you still doing here, Rael?"

Rael's fury turned to M-21. " _What do you_ — might I remind you that I'm on official Lukedonian business! I'm an ambassador here — helping you lot find Raizel-nim."

Seira put a hand on Regis's shoulder before he bit back. She frowned and left to the kitchen. Seira motioned for Rael to put down the groceries next to the unwashed plates, dragging him away.

"…So," M-21 started tentatively, "nothing today, either?"

"No," Regis said. He plod himself onto the couch opposite him. "Nothing."

M-21 turned to Takeo and Tao. "Anything?"

"I _just_ said—"

"No," Tao replied, cutting off Regis politely, "we couldn't find any clues on him. We've already extended our search outside the city, but… _no."_

"Not yet," Takeo added. He finished putting the temporary door back in place, and sat on one of the high chairs at the kitchen.

"Okay," M-21 thanked his answer with a dim smile.

"So, I'll have to keep things going at school tomorrow, alright? Won't be able to come searching with you guys until I'm sure I've got a hold of things there. Can't let the school down," Tao grinned, tousling a hand through his hair, "got exams coming up for the kids."

"I will continue to search," Regis exclaimed loudly. He looked to Seira. She lingered for a moment before nodding her head.

"Ok then. I'll meet up with you as soon as that stuff is done." Tao placed his hands awkwardly on his lap, before talking again, "so, the official story is — the Principal has gone on an emergency trip to out of the country. A personal emergency, that is."

"What?"

"Oh I don't know, M-21, his Great Aunt is sick or something?!" Tao said suddenly.

"Sounds good!" he bit back irritatedly.

"M-21," Takeo cut in, exasperated, "the Principal wouldn't want—"

"What? Are we calling him 'Principal' now? We can't even say 'Frankenstein?"

Takeo opened his mouth, closed it, squinted to the side, and then looked fully away. They all piped down again.

"Lemme help, Seira," Takeo offered, escaping the conversation to wash the dishes. They always left it for the end of the day now, something that the house-owner would've hated. The household ate in the mornings and ran out the door for their search. It felt like a long time had passed, but it wasn't really. For the nobles, it still felt like a blink of an eye.

"How are your injuries coming along, M-21?" Tao asked.

"I'm fine," M-21 answered shortly.

"Yeah? You've been doing the exercises I've told you to do, right?"

"I've mostly been napping on this couch."

"…M-21…"

"Why do you think _he_ left?"

Tao's expression fell even further at M-21's words.

"It's been three weeks, what does he think he's doing?" M-21 muttered, kicking the coffee table and making it ring.

"Hey, he's definitely taking this the heaviest out of all of us, alright?" Takeo said over the dishes. "We just need to keep looking, M-21. We'll find him. Or he'll come find us. That's for sure."

"That, or we all die before he comes back."

"M-21!" Regis shouted. "We're all trying our hardest to find Raizel-nim. You don't need to be so agitated! We're making you stay so you can heal your injuries faster and then—"

"And then join the needle-in-the-haystack search?" M-21 said lightly.

Regis cringed. "Isn't that what you wanted?!"

"I just want to bash Union faces in—"

"You're not _special,_ M-21, we all want to do that!"

Tao huffed a long sigh. "Guys, guys, we need to chill. We all need to CHILL, ok?"

"YOU — chill!" Regis squinted at Tao.

"Hot tea?" Seira dragged Rael over with a tray of tea.

"HOT TEA?!" M-21 yelled.

A moment of quiet passed. M-21 found himself huffing.

"It's calming," Seira explained. She picked up his bandaged hand and pressed a warm cup into it. Sighing, she gestured to the tray for everyone else.

"….Thanks, Seira."

"Thank you, Seira."

"Thanks."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," Seira said.

* * *

They still had dinner together every night, sat around the table; still marked the map together in sharpie and red pen; made sure to meet back at the designated spot after a day's search. But it was hard, Seira thought. Tao knew how to take care of school on the side, how to make it seem like the Principal was still there doing his work overseas, and fake doctor's notes for the Regis and Seira. Tao worked. Tao worked a lot. Every spare moment, he was either on his laptop, scouring news articles and police activity and unexplainable sightings, or — Seira caught him at it a couple of times — staring out of any window. KSA agents frequently reported to him and Tao still joked. He still laughed, twirled his fingers around like a nervous child and grinned in inappropriate moments.

He laughed a lot. He laughed louder. He laughed obviously, flamboyantly, but not really _happily._ How could they be happy, after everything that had happened? Seira found Tao on the roof once, perched against the chimney and haunched over his gangly legs, pair of chunky headphones over his ears. She neared him and reached out. The second she did, Tao flipped around and violently knocked her hand away. Her eyes widened and she flinched. Tao was increasingly jumpy. About every little thing. The red dots on the map and blocking Union hacks on his tech was making Tao weary. He liked to keep an eye on anything Union, he would say now. It was Frankenstein's job before, but _now..._

"I'm just wondering if another one of those goons would show up and snatch one of us away. They just…Sorry, Seira. Didn't mean to be so heavy, phew! I'm keeping tabs on everything, not just Lukedonia or the Union." But 'everything' didn't seem like enough for him. Tao had permanent bags under his eyes, hardly rested, never ate fully. He liked to work, and he kept himself busy.

 _"Haahahahahaha!_ It's fine, Seira!" Seira just smiled back to him. "It's going to be ok," Tao said through his tears. Seira flinched back because she'd never seen Tao cry before. But now he was laughing again, laughing and giggling and mushing his hands into his wet face, _"heheheh!"_

"It'sgoing to be ok again, Tao." That was what Gejutel had said to her the night she found out her father and brother had passed. She handed Tao a handkerchief, "Wow, _Lukedonian handkerchief. Fancy~"_ and just stood there holding it. He pressed it once to his face. Then, Tao slowly arched his neck over Seria's shoulder, drawing her into a warm hug. "Thanks, Seira." They stayed there on the roof for a long while.

"Y-you're choking me a li—a little, Seira…"

* * *

Takeo came home beat up one night.

Despite M-21's irritable mood, he was worried and weary and insisted to stay up, even when Tao had made sure his medication would sedate him for a guaranteed good couple hours. It was nearly four o'clock in the morning when Seira finally managed to coax M-21 to leave, get some goddamned rest already. _"You're going to retire now, otherwise the rest of the house will survive on Rael's cooking from now on."_

The clock struck five in the morning and Seira heard the door bash open with a strenuous grunt.

"Where were you? At this hour in the morning?"

Takeo didn't even switch on his modified sniper's eyes, walking halfway across the room before he fumbled at Seira's voice. "Seira? What are you…Uh. Nothing, hi. It's so late. What are you doing?" He hesitated, stepped back in tedious, broken breathes and Seira wondered why he was only wearing an under shirt and pants, long hair spilled over his face. Takeo was usually a neat man.

"You're bleeding."

"I — _oh."_

Takeo threw his head back, sniffed blood back up his nose and smudged a murky line of it over his face. His pinky finger was broken from being stepped on. His clothes were ripped and muddied with boot-marks where he couldn't see on his back, when he turned away from Seira.

"I might have walked into a little trouble heading back today. It was my bad. Took an unfortunate route."

"Takeo, you cannot hurt yourself like this."

"I didn't plan on getting mugged, Seira."

Seira's seemed to feel choked up. Now she wondered if Takeo provoked an attack or honestly waited around for it to happen. She imagined him cornered in an alley, voicing a half-assed plea as his jacket was taken, his wallet emptied and then getting knocked out with a poorly thrown punch, just for good measure. But humans could not knock an enhanced human unconscious, and staying down wasn't Takeo's style.

"Sit," she said.

Takeo drew his hair to one side, let Seira trace the bruises on his jawbone, dap at the blood on his forehead. "Don't worry too much. This much damage will go away in a day. I'll sleep in tomorrow, the guys won't even notice it once it's healed."

"I worry," she said shortly, and stabbed the cotton into the wound.

"…Sorry."

"Hmnh."

Takeo shifted under her hand, wincing at the meagre wounds. "It sucks, losing someone," he said, mild and practiced.

Seira smiled sadly, "It's always more than what you'd thought you could previously bear."

Takeo sat up. "At least Teira was a farce. But this…"

Takeo drew more blood, biting on his lip. "I can't imagine what _he_ feels like."

Seira put the first aid kit away. "Neither." She stayed there for the rest of the short night, conversing with Takeo about it all — Lukedonia, Korea, the school…pc bang, cake recipes and her neglected literacy papers, until the rest of the household got up and growled at Takeo all over again.

* * *

M-21 didn't do much.

He found Seira looking out from the veranda one time and he asked, "what happens when a noble loses their bonded?"

Seira thought for a lengthy moment, picking her words with care. But nothing of wisdom or knowing came out. "I have no idea."

"Oh. Alright then."

They stood there, feeling the breeze on their faces.

"But," Seira started, "there are no known contracts between any noble or human anymore. Roctis's criminal contract with the Twelfth Elder, and Raizel-nim's true contract, were the very last."

"I see."

"It hurt, though."

M-21 gave her an unsteady look. "Of course."

"I can't imagine what it would feel like, for your soul to be ripped apart."

"For your soul to _what?"_

M-21's mouth slipped open. But then he closed it, accepted it morbidly, and continued watching the clouds.

* * *

Regis had started to avoid her. And she let it happen. Children needed space. Regis needed to shout and she didn't tell him to calm down when he did it. When Regis sat and did his school studies, tried to make up for class, she didn't tell him to take breaks.

It seemed as if Regis didn't know how to take the current affairs. He bickered and M-21 was the prime bickerer. But now Rael was in the house, whenever that got too heated she was bound to step in. Regis struggled not to lash out at her.

"I think that's enough searching for one day. We have to head home now, Regis," she called over her shoulder.

"Seira?" Regis piped up.

Seira slowed to a stop and gave him her full attention.

"A bonded noble and human can't separate once the contract has been sealed, right?"

Seira shook her head, "No. From everything that I've heard — a contract cannot be undone. Nobles often outlived their bonded in our history." Seira brushed her hair aside.

"So he's really gone, then. Huh."

Some small, dewdrop of a hope evaporated from Regis's face. "Alright." Regis collapsed on a park bench. Seira went to join him and he leaned in.

"Living like this has become so natural," Seira said. "Ever since we arrived in the human world they've been here for us. It feels so strange."

"Yeah," Regis answered. "Who knew the first ones we'd run into in the human world was the Noblesse," he said through a little chuckle. "Out of all the people of Korea, we had to befriend the Noblesse. And we had to enrol in the Principal's school." He huffed. "Best coincidence ever."

"Yeah," Seira answered. "My form and fighting style has improved because of the Chairman. I can mould aura better, fight hand-to-hand combat better…" She paused to frown. "The food I cook for dinner, the Chairman taught it to me." She felt Regis nod into her neck.

"It was an honour to be taught by him. It was an honour to be part of the household." Seira looked up to the skies and slowly closed her eyes. "I haven't been that happy since before my father and brother passed." She squeezed her hands together. "I thought it might have lasted longer than that."

"Same." Regis shifted his weight a little.

Regis lifted his head off of her shoulder. "I don't want to go back to Lukedonia, Seira."

"We don't have to. We haven't been called back yet so we can stay as long as we want."

"Good." He smiled. "I want to stay here for as long as possible before going back."

"Then that is what we'll do."

"Thanks, Seira."

Then after a moment where they both lingered in the warm light, Seira chuckled. "I can't believe we thought your mind-control abilities could work on the Chairman when we first arrived. We depended on that for weeks, Regis. _Weeks._ "

Regis rose from the seat and burst out laughing.

* * *

There was a knock on the door. Just one, hard knock. Hard enough to send a cloud of dust into the air from the damage on the sides.

"If you're trying to rob uuuuus," Tao called up from his laptop, "don't judge our door, our central alarm system still works!"

Another single knock bashed into the door.

Tao spun around to eye the others. M-21 shrugged and flapped his good hand at the door. It was Regis's harsh hold on his shoulder that made him consider the situation. They got up, slowly nearing the door. Takeo pressed on the camera system. It flickered alive, showing a rather patchy scrawl of black. Completely covering the camera.

"Who is it?" Tao asked seriously.

"Announce yourself," Rael pushed Tao aside and pointed Grandia behind the sliceable material of the door. "Now."

The screen on the door muffled again before sound finally came from it. "Have I not performed the door knocking ritual correctly? Or is there more to it? A password? My name is Gejutel K. Landeg—"

The door flung open, revealing a pair of Grandia waved in the air, the trio taking a step back and Seira doing a short bow. Regis walked out onto the porch and wrapped his arms around Gejutel. " _Umf_ — Regis!" he exclaimed, and then, " _Regis,_ " he said repeated softly.

Regis quickly parted and dusted off his clothes. "Ehem. Gaju-nim, it's nice to see you." And then he bowed formally.

"Ah," Gejutel frowned, "I see Rael Kertia is taking his duties seriously. Good."

Grandia melted out of Rael's fingers. "Good evening, Gejutel-nim," he stood and saluted.

"Hey Regis's Grandpa," Tao waved and Gejutel scrunched his nose. Takeo and M-21 just nodded their heads. "And you're supposed to knock more than just once. Like, three-four times, minimum. You know?"

"What are you doing here, Gaju-nim?" Regis asked, ignoring Tao. "We're still looking for Raizel-nim. There haven't been any leads and…and Seira and I have decided to stay to find him," he finished, determinedly.

"It's not that that I'm here about." They followed Gejutel back into the house. "Regis. Seira. Rael. And Raizel-nim's friends. The Noblesse has been located."

"What?!"

The household took turns to stare at each other, minus Rael who squinted. "Well where is he?! Was he even in Korea all this time?!"

Gejutel cleared his throat, beckoning them to all calm. "Raizel-nim has been located back in Lukedonia. In his house."

"HIS HOUSE?" M-21 bellowed. "Are you telling me no one bothered to check HIS HOUSE?!"

Gejutel cleared his throat louder. _"Ehem…_ my duty was to alert this place. What you decide now is up to you," Gejutel finished solemnly. "If you wish to go, no one will stop you."

"Gejutel-nim," Seira started, "we're all going." That was the end of the discussion.

Gejutel watched the children rush all over the house, collecting random objects into duffel bags and heading off to throwing them unceremoniously into Frankenstein's plane. He supposed all of Frankenstein's prized belongings and property went to Raizel-nim. The angry blonde would have wanted that. But he wondered whether the belongings would last for when he bought up the subject to Raizel, for it would take a long, long time.

* * *

 _Three weeks ago_

They guided the empty shell of him back to their South Korean house. Takeo pulled the door clean off again, going ahead to wade through the mess of upturned furniture. They talked of things, hid away their anger and frustration for just a moment for when they came home. Seira busied herself with the tea, chose the best leaves and filled up the room up with fragrant smells of jasmine. They heard the spoon scoop into brown sugar — nine spoons — and she set it down at the table for them.

Raizel's eyes were swollen and his cheeks had more colour than they'd ever seen it. He smiled in that kind and knowing manner and thanked her politely. Picked up the cup politely. Drank politely. Nodded politely. And then listened to the children speak. M-21 didn't show the slightest bit of anger towards the Chairman bashing him into concrete. But now he was livid. Tao and takeo gave him calm words, something to hold onto as they all felt the change twist the house as they were sitting in it. Regis was quiet. Seira was quiet.

Raizel had little to say. "Thank you." "I know." "It's alright." "Thank you."

"You should go wash your face, Sir. Cool down a bit?" Tao asked carefully.

"…Wash my face?" Raizel asked.

"Yeah. I mean, after a good cry that's what you do, right?" Tao shrugged, getting nowhere. He walked to the kitchen and splashed some water onto his face. "See. Cool." He wrangled his shirt up, exposing his midriff and using his shirt to wipe his face. "So chill."

Raizel got up stoically. "Alright." He marched to the kitchen. Yanking the tap to the coldest, he followed Tao's example and unceremoniously splashed water on his face. Raizel got up and faced Tao seriously.

"Like this?"

Water slicked his hair to his face and he didn't care about it dripping all over the ground. His collar and loosened, hanging cravat was soaked.

"Yep," Tao said, more water about to run from his eyes. He splashed himself again. "It's supposed to help. Like honey and lemon water when you get sick. You just do it."

Tao ripped off a paper towel for Raizel to use, only to see that he'd magically dried himself. Raizel took the paper gratefully.

"Thank you, Tao." His expression went listless again. Raizel patted the paper delicately over his dry face. "What else can I do to feel better?"

That stumped Tao. "First of all, probably stay away from M-21 for now. He's not taking this well. _Hahah,_ well, I'm not either but…do you want to go for a sleep or something?"

Raizel nodded. "I think I would like that."

"Alright then. Seira and Regis are making dinner right now. Takeo's hanging with M-21. I'll knock on your door in an hour and a half then?"

"Please, Tao."

Nightfall had come and there was no more rain to patter across the ground. They let Raizel retire to his room and withdrew to themselves for a short while. But it was a long, long moment of silence for the household. Nothing would ever be the same, and they did not know what was going to happen to the house without the house owner. Or the school without the chairman. The RK without the Boss. Or Raizel without his Frankenstein.

Tao and Takeo opened the door to the empty bedroom some hours later.

That night, he disappeared.

* * *

Notes.

I've wanted to update for a long time but I was busy busy and no matter what I did I wasn't satisfied with this chapter. Mostly because it got so long that I had to cut the flashback here. I was going to split the flashback between this chapter and the next chapter, but I've cut it completely out of both since it wasn't working for me. So that means that, while this chapter is a pretty good length, chapter 25 is going to be noticeably short. Sorry about that. I'll see if I can wedge the extra bit somewhere else. Otherwise, you'll just have to find it in side stories later. I'll let you know cos it's mentioned in one line in another part of the fic and I'm pulling my hair out. Anyhow, is anyone opposed to a random flashback chapter like 'Enigma' just inserted at random? Because Enigma is like a transition point but this one...just isn't, lol.

Poor Seira though. Everything sucks and Seira's trying to keep it together.

Thank you to everybody who has supported and commented on the fic. It really means a lot to me you guys can't imagine :')

And thanks to lalala - I saw that review in the exact moment I needed it and YOU'RE RIGHT. No death scene, no body = still alive, ha! It's the rule. Tesamu was going to be straight up first elder, but then I thought his high rank within the Union and this 'going off to do own thing' with Franken wouldn't fly. So he's 0 elder to make the story work.

There you go, nobody-yet!

love,

\- earl


	25. Blue, Blue World

Disclaimer: nothing to do with actual noblesse or line webtoon as always lol

Thank you to Brissygirl for betaing! Basically, the household has already flown and landed in Lukedonia.

* * *

The first time they met:

The Noblesse had turned his back upon the human for his window, expecting him — he'd said his name was Frankenstein — to leave within the hour, expecting to forget they ever happened.

But underneath it all: the grandiose gestures, the flamboyant tongue and destructive power; humanity's calamity stored behind a flecked, glass jar; when everything was stripped back, Frankenstein was compassionate. He was caring. He cared too much when he thought he cared too little. He was a lot of things and many-faced, but he collected each burn mark and remembered them when he showed his true face. He was some lion in knights armour, or a knight in lion's skin. He bore it all — he swallowed words and wrongs, and sin and souls — all that was in his way and harmed in his way and harmed out of his way, behind his back; he pushed it all down, all of their loathing, until it became his and he fought for them.

When he first met Frankenstein, Raizel turned his back on him, because his soul was so _bright_ ; so young and fiery even beyond those searching black hands and that mass of black debt he didn't dare try escape. He was weighed down, held down and always at knife-point, but that didn't stop his soul from glaring gold. And Raizel wondered if that was why _they, Dark Spear,_ could never so simply gulp him down like they always boasted.

He was a man born from the start, out of time, and for him, he couldn't blame that no one would — could, ever catch up. He became a dreamer, whose job was to run. Running, and fighting, until one strange day, he ran into him. The lonely man in the lonely house.

From the day he had met him, to the day he was put to sleep, to the day he had woken up in the land of Korea — Raizel had not been alone.

* * *

 **Blue, blue world**

Regis had learnt how to deactivate the invisible barrier cloaking the mansion in the forbidden area. The household stood before the thick stretch of forest. A pristine, cloudless sky went on for miles and miles in all directions, like open sea. The space before them was crisp and clear. And then it was not.

"There," Regis said, getting up from a crouch.

The unobstructed space before them distorted, one invisible point seemingly merging with another, pulling colours and shapes out of proportion and making others that weren't there before, solidify until it became tangible. The ground seemed to turn into sink sand, prompting Rael and M-21 to jump. They knew what was coming, but it was still hard not to look at their feet and see that it was still as hard and stable as before.

It wasn't like a soul weapon materialising with parts and aura rushing to construct the weapon — the house of the Noblesse simply pulled into being. As if it were from another plane of existence. Glass planes began to reflect light where it lay flat and still before; the colours seemed to deepen and cement; the spires, for the moment, looked as they were moving and reaching upwards into the sky, and the household had trouble discerning how high they went in a sky with no clouds. Finally, a shadow darkened the grounds, casting them into it. Before long, the mansion loomed over them.

"Knock," Takeo said, pulling everyone out of their stupor. He staunchly knocked. There was no answer, but none of them had expected one.

"Did you try turning the knob?" Tao said, nodding to it.

Takeo frowned. He spun the knob and the door swung easily open.

The last time they'd left this place, Frankenstein had made sure that it was meticulous. But the tidiness of the mansion felt almost misplaced. It was as if the very air of this place was dated, like it was doused in a layer of another age, or an world away from the current reality. Apart from their footsteps, nothing suggested usage of such a mansion.

"RAIZEL-NIM!"

Seira and Regis spun around, almost wincing at Tao's voice. He didn't seem to mind. Tao cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted out without restraint. "Raizel-nim! Sir!"

Takeo took another part of the floor and did the same in the opposite direction. "Sir Raizel! It's us!"

"Raizel-nim!" Regis called, jumping straight after them.

"C'mon," M-21 said, strutting up the steps closest to him. "You think he's going to shout back at us? Don't bother. We have to find him."

Seira and Rael nodded. "Right," Seira said, and she leapt up a floor with one good heave, landing on the first balcony. "Split up, it's the fastest way to find him — and then the one who finds him first will alert the others! I'll take the second floor."

"I'll take the third!" Regis called.

"I've got the first floor corridor," Tao said, his voice echoing through it.

"Fourth, then," Takeo exclaimed.

Rael zipped to one side, "The other corridor."

They raced in different directions. M-21 kept going up the stairs until there was none left.

* * *

M-21 kicked down another door straight from it's hinges. He poked his head in, grabbed it, and balanced it somewhat back into place before quickly moving on.

M-21 delicately turned the corner and softly, softly cracked open the next door. Cold air blew in his face and he shut it with care.

As much as this was a gorgeous mansion, M-21 would hate to live in it. He'd opened about thirty doors, was already bored, and his arm was getting uncharacteristically tired. It wasn't really the fair layer of dust that covered the place; that was warranted. He thought it might have been the emptiness. M-21 pushed open a door, and it creaked with an odd squeak. Though the mansion was large, it was in no way chilly. M-21 stopped in his track. _Think, '21, think._

He'd lost many people he'd cared about in the part of his life that he actually remembered. He'd lost M-24. And though it wasn't the same for him and Raizel, one thing definitely was. If the Noblesse had nothing else in this world, if he was magically stripped of his rank and power right this second — Raizel _did_ have a family. When it all went spiralling out of control and Raizel was gone, M-21 was mad, and then he was not; and then he was furious, and then he was not. Now he was here, and he knew more than anything that Raizel needed them. He wasn't going to let him stay in some pretty, haunted house attraction and brood. _Not alone, anyway._ The entire Lee household had come running without a second thought to play 'Finding Raizel,' and that was just what they were about to do.

M-21 retraced his tracks, looking to the door he'd closed. They all looked identical except that the brass handle on this one was slightly weathered, the centre of it less shiny than the rest.

It had taken an awfully long time to get accustomed to it, but Raizel was a noble and nobles felt different to humans. When M-21 cared enough to be observant. It probably helped that M-21 was a werewolf hybrid and upgraded version of a human. After Tao, Takeo, Regis, Seira and he had lounged around on the couches at home full of junk food and ridiculously quality tea, he might've realised that Raizel felt _warm_ to be around. And the day they'd returned from the battle, he was as cold as he had ever been.

M-21 opened the door again. The chill set in his bones, frosting crystals between his ribs.

He blinked up through the darkness. All his thoughts stopped grappling at once when he saw the lone man standing with his back toward him, the darkest thing in the room. Black clothes, black hair, and something about his sadness, seemed black to him as well. He was the colour of mourning. M-21 shifted for a second, about to call out for the others. But the place seemed so still. As if everything in the room was so fragile, that it could be broken by something as small as a wrong breath of air. M-21 thought better of it. He let it be quiet for him, even if only for a while longer.

M-21 stepped in, stopping behind him in the middle of the room. The Noblesse didn't show any indication of knowing his presence. But it was _him,_ of course he knew. He must have known they'd come looking for him. He must have known when they'd touched down in Lukedonia. He must have known when they'd set foot in his mansion. M-21 blinked, making his eyes adjust. M-21 had been thrown into darkness with him, and it made his heart wrench.

It was the middle of the day. The window was closed.

M-21 stared, not knowing what to say, not having the slightest idea what to do. He'd found him, _but now what?_ The only source of light streamed down from under the window, and the ends of the closed curtain cut it up in dim streaks. It silhouetted his dark, dark clothes, a nuisance in his dark, dark room. The light touched the floorboards, illuminating weathered indentations made by footprints. Those could only be made by wear and tear of time. Decades. Or maybe longer, much longer. M-21 cringed to the side. This was where he always stood, M-21 gathered. This was how it always was for him. Another thought occurred, and he looked suddenly down where he stood. Was this where Frankenstein always was? Was he looking at him through Frankenstein's eyes, when he first met him? The thought was daunting. Knowing this was the room that Frankenstein had accompanied him in for eons, was not a comforting thought right now, he realised.

Knowing Frankenstein had walked all over this room, cleaning the desk where it was now covered in dust, and opening the curtains where it was now drawn, was painful. This place had fallen into disrepair without him.

And Raizel-nim.

But he was still standing, back turned, looking at nothing but a closed curtain. Would he not even look at the sight of the outside world? Feel a shred of light on his face? M-21 paled now, scared of what he had being staring at for the past minutes. There was always a window. There was always the wind on his face. A light in his eyes. Those things were more important to him than M-21 could understand, but he just knew. M-21 stepped closer to him, ignoring the creak of the floorboards as he moved.

"Why don't you open the window?"

Nothing changed. He'd expected this.

"You always have the window open. I've never seen you with one closed before."

M-21 was talking to himself.

"…Raizel-nim." He closed his eyes. "Raizel." He opened them. "Won't you even give yourself this?!" he said, a little louder.

Silence permeated over them again.

 _He can't do this. He can't stay like this forever._ He can't deprive himself of the things he loved best; the people who loved him. M-21 flushed with an anger, and tensed. But he snapped away his last restraint, not caring anymore if this was in any way selfish; he would be selfish, for him. M-21 closed the gap between them, went past his side to—

Open the window.

M-21 ripped the curtains wide open, sending a wave of dust sifting through the air, and light to pour into the room. His pupils contracted as he turned to see Raizel. But Raizel turned away from the window — away from him. M-21 sighed shortly.

"…Is this wrong of me?"

Silence.

"You have all the power in the world to smite me for doing that, but you can't even look at me?"

M-21 winced at the harshness of his words. What would Frankenstein do? Ah. Frankenstein would kill him. Not really, but he'd have hated him for doing that. For doing this. Whatever this was — M-21 didn't even know, but it was what he was trying.

"Am I unwelcome here?"

He had little hope, but after a long, grim pause, Raizel's black form shifted. Raizel turned, not towards the light, but towards M-21. Deep, red eyes blinked up at M-21, and he truly saw him for the first time. M-21's brows sunk, and his whole body weakened.

Raizel's eyes — they were nothing like how he'd ever seen them. His eyes were vacant and senseless, a great age reflected in him. M-21 was suddenly aware of how ancient Cadis Etrama di Raizel was — he was lightyears far away from him. They were careless and feelingless, cold, as if he was put under some spell that made him forget everything, or want to forget everything, and he was letting himself. Raizel was as if a thick fog had befallen him, veiling deep behind his eyes and now looking at him, trying to find the real him, was like remembering a distant memory. He could be a stranger — a strange man, in a strange room, in a strange house, in a strange land, and he was lost from M-21.

M-21 balked into the glass, leaning his hands on the sill. "…Look," he said. "Look. We're all sad about this. We're all grieving…we don't know… _I_ don't know what to do. I don't know how to do this again."

M-21 faced him, slouching. "But I just know…come back. You need to come back, back to Korea — the house. We can't let you stay here alone." He inhaled. "We're not going to let you go through this alone."

"Go through what?"

M-21's eyes widened when he spoke. Broken and gruff. As if he hadn't spoken a word since M-21 had heard him scream on that battlefield. Even that seemed distant.

"Mourning," M-21 replied.

Raizel hadn't lifted his sight off him, but in all that time, he didn't once look beyond the glass. M-21 thinned his eyes through the window. Mountains rose on the bright horizon, birds fluttered past free. Everything right and idyllic through this glass, was worth nothing, enclosed within it.

"Why can't you look?" M-21 asked again.

This time, Raizel answered. "Because…" he breathed, " it's blue."

M-21 coiled back. Confusion settled on his face. "What?"

"It's too blue."

"Too blue?" M-21 did what Raizel couldn't, and peered out the window. "….The sky?"

Raizel nodded.

"Why?"

"It looks so blue. It looks like his eyes."

 _"Hh…"_ Everything around M-21 seemed to blanch of anything — colour, vigour, feeling…

He felt sick.

"Frankenstein…" Raizel mumbled, "he would dislike this of me. But M-21…"

He said it, exasperatingly, pleading for help. "I can't look at the sky."

Suddenly, it seemed as if his demeanour broke down, and he rocked backwards, unbalanced. M-21 jolted forward to steady him, but Raizel flung up a hand, stopping him in his track. Raizel took a breath, a long, ragged one. He turned upon the window, heavily slamming his back against it. M-21 flinched, frightened as his head hit the glass last, cracking its surface. No one spoke. M-21 could only watch as Raizel's back dragged from the window, to the wall, and fell onto the floor.

There was nothing else to say. M-21 plod his back on the wall too, and slid down to join him. He looked at him, but Raizel only looked forward. M-21 lifted a tentative arm. He wrapped it around Raizel. They just sat there together, not alone but in silence, looking at the place where Frankenstein had stood, looking in the chasm that Frankenstein had left.

* * *

Notes

This chapter came later than I anticipated. Apologies :/

I lengthened this chapter, and then it got too irrelevant so I had to cut it again? Erm, theres more purple prose and 'M-21 doing some thinking' that will appear in side scenes lol. Which I should update asap. Also, thus far, I figured out that this fic is longer than harry potters 1 and 2.

(Looking back at The Point of this chapter...thats pretty majorly sad cheesy. But ok. It's because I'm a slut for metaphors. I couldn't belieeeeve it because qdeanna pointed out the line 'although in those blue eyes, it was always daylight, Raizel looked at him as if he were the stars' and other shit like '...almost-serpentine ambition that swallowed the sky in his eyes' etc was obscurely supposed to set up this shit. Wow you guys I am elated! I don't know how you specifically picked out that line wowowow! Anyhow, Laryna6 came up with the awesome analogy ages ago that Franken= stars, Rai= moon, Tesamu= sun, which I do love.)

Elims - sorry about the confusion! But yes, Rai went home and then immediately ran off the day the Franken was gone and the battle finished. The kids had been looking for him for about three weeks. But it's not what M-21 thought when he snapped at Gejutel! Because Rai didn't just immediately turn up at Lukedonia. I imagine he wasn't planning to disappear. But he wandered back to his mansion because that was where his legs seemed to be taking him. He said to Raskreia he wanted to go home, but when he did, he ran away? When that home didn't work, he went to the other one. What does Rai actually think of as a home? What has been his home for many many years? A place? Or people?

General Zargon - I wanted to write a bit for Seira ;_; In canon she's apparently not that much older than Regis, though she acts a lot more mature. My interpretation is that, it's because the title of clan leader is something she's constantly aware of, and tries vehemently to fulfil. Maybe back in Lukedonia, it's what's expected of her. So she puts a lot of pressure on herself to be responsible and overextends a lot. But she's there for the household when they need it, despite herself being in the same state as the rest of them. She really needed that moment with Regis. Anyhow, Seira, in my mind, is exceptionally good at looking like she's keeping it together, if nothing else. Thanks general zargon.

nobody yet - I hope it was a good cry ;_; Thank!

The Midnight Cat of the Dark - Ooh please read my response to Elims^ It's because Rai went to his mansion somewhere within those three weeks on a whim more than anything. I'll try to keep regular updates for you guys.

love,

\- earl


	26. The Visitor

Unbeta'd because I wanted to get this out asap.

* * *

 **Unspecified time**

 **1000+ years ago,**

 **Lukedonia**

Shoulder pat

"So?" Frankenstein asked, pouring green tea into a cup.

"I've told you before, you do not need to seek my permission to leave Lukedonia."

"No," Frankenstein said, "but I want you to know I'm not going back for supplies, this time."

Raizel turned sharply away from the window and settled into one of the arm chairs. Frankenstein was hesitant for moment, but smiled. "I wish to go back to visit someone. If you'll allow it."

"Yes."

Frankenstein's smile grew nervous, though he nodded. "I might be away for more than a couple days. Nothing more than a week or two, however. Is there anything you'd like for me to bring back for you?" Consternation fell over his features, and Frankenstein patted a hand to his chin. "More tea samples? Exotic fruits? Or cloth, perhaps? I'll be going to Europe so if you want me to stop by for more lace…"

"No."

"Ah. Alright."

"…"

"How about perfumes? I can make it to Gaul and back."

Raizel looked up earnestly, his eyes wide and bright, shaking gently. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Frankenstein lifted his brows. "What? Nothing's wrong, My Lord."

His aura was like water, rippling in little patterns, blown by the wind as his thoughts scattered. He was nervous. Raizel turned away when he thought Frankenstein had caught him staring. "Frankenstein…" he asked tentatively.

"Yes?" Frankenstein was halfway to the door when he froze upon his soft voice. Frankenstein retraced his steps and stood near his chair. His flustered aura tuned down. But now Raizel felt his own heart flutter. He pursed his lips, wavered in his seat, and then looked delicately up at him again. Blue eyes swam around his face, enshrouding in worry at his strange behaviour. No. He didn't want to worry him further. Raizel swallowed, and smiled.

"May I…."

 _Yes?_

"May I come with you?"

Frankenstein's eyes went blank. Then they slowly widened, as if the realisation had faltered. He looked taken aback, and Raizel wondered whether he could take that _question_ back. Frankenstein blew air out though his nose and scrunched his brows jovially. A profound warmth spread from his chest to Raizel. Raizel felt utterly confused.

"I…Master, it won't be very interesting."

"I don't mind," came his voice. The quickness of his words made him open his mouth dumbly but — he was serious.

Frankenstein moved to stand squarely before him. "Are you…sure? I assure you I'll have it handled easily. I don't want to bother you with trivial matte—"

"Unless you do not wish it of me, I want to accompany you." Now Frankenstein didn't understand. The only time Raizel had ever left his mansion was when he needed to save his arse, when he'd coaxed him out to see what he'd done with the garden, and when he was summoned by the old bugger.

 _He's the Lord, Frankenstein._

Frankenstein flinched.

 _Yes, sorry._

 _No matter._

Frankenstein didn't break the silence this time. He moved to sit in the chair opposite him and laid his hands upon his knees.

 _I plan to go to the Old Kingdom of Burgundy. To a place of small villages. But I expect you'll enjoy the scenery and I'll find you nice places to eat. Or I could cook, if you'd prefer. Whatever you'd like.'_

 _No. I will follow you and do what you would like._

 _Pardon?_

 _This is your trip. I am merely accompanying you. _

_'…'_

 _I will try my best not to burden you._

"Master?!" Frankenstein stated, rather loudly. His voice blared across the room. Frankenstein's lips thinned, and then he dipped his head in a half-hearted apology. "If you want to go, then we will go. It's a simple thing…we'll be back very soon."

Raizel nodded fervently. _Frankenstein took his trips to the human world so seriously._

* * *

 **1000+ years ago**

 **Kingdom of Burgundy**

They landed on the outskirts of the land.

Raizel was mystified. The minute Raizel touched upon ground, feather light, his eyes lit up with a sort of wonder; he graced over the gravelly paths, regarding the land as if it were made of gold. As if it were as precious as diamonds. Every time they passed a river, Frankenstein would wade over the terrain to stop at it's ebb, insisting he needed to rest or refill their bottles or clean his monocle — anything to let Raizel watch the clear waters flow and dance in their small, breaking waves. Something as small as that made his heart flutter with joy. Frankenstein pushed a gloved hand over his mouth to stifle his grinning.

Once, they'd passed an open farmland and while Frankenstein trekked on, he found Raizel dumbfounded, standing wryly and overlooking a field of trotting cattle, circling and circling the green grass in droves. He smiled when he saw a calf bound up close to the fence, sticking their snout out to tug at the longer vegetation stretching outside, and shuddered when he saw another trample over and fall before getting shakily up. Frankenstein had to offer his hand to guide him away, because two days of watching cows…while he'd gladly stay with him, the farmers were getting increasingly irritated at the strange men in strange clothes.

Frankenstein presented Raizel with a common villager's cloak at the next human settlement, hoping that it'll help them blend in. He wondered why he'd even bothered, when Raizel froze up when other humans waved their hands in greeting, smiled as they trod past and Frankenstein answered for him, "Salve ad vos; hello to you as well!" One time, a little girl picked up a weed from the side of the road. She thought it was pretty and shoved it in Raizel's face in her excitement. Frankenstein wanted to laugh. Raizel bent down to her, sniffed the daisy and smiled in that way that Frankenstein had only seen him do when he offered him too many choices of one thing. Which was often. But it was beaming and open and genuine; the girl laughed in his surprised face and handed him the daisy. And just like that, Raizel was red-faced for the entire day. Frankenstein had to take care to walk in front of him while simultaneously making sure he didn't lose him from behind.

The centre of Burgundi was a hotbed of everything. From food, things and people—around those cluttered streets there was always someone or something that caught Raizel's eye and he wanted to stare, summon his will to hold his ground as crowds chittered past him, to stare at smooth silken sheets or rough nuts. He'd stare long enough until the humans, traders and merchants, eyed him nervously from afar — because he wore a strange cravat and had a tall, blonde man staring daggers at his side at anyone who approached a little funny. They walked the brimming streets, looking at jewels spread out on blue tapestries or expensive robes looped in lines above their heads and always, the blonde man would say something, announce it in a foreign language, and then they'd stand waiting for a long, long time together. A decision might be made, by the blonde man, usually, and they'd purchase a small sack of dried fruits to share using nearly out-dated coins. Frankenstein often had to explain the different values of money and why Raizel had had been mercilessly scammed and overpaid.

Frankenstein bought Raizel out on a hillside in the evening too early one day, and he apologised for a misscalculation, but Raizel stared at the sky all the same. One endless, unbroken blue, and Frankenstein watched the pastel colours deepen and darken, from aquamarine to sapphire. For the first time in a century, he saw the colours of embers light up the skies in tawny-bright hues outside of that spot at his window. It was the evening, but the day still felt new. Frankenstein was momentarily blinded by the brilliance of the sunset. It murkied the blue of his eyes and Frankenstein had to look away. His gaze wadded to Raizel instead, and the sheer awe on his face gripped him in another kind of feeling.

Something yearning and longing, yet at the same time, there was a warm fulfilment that spilled over, encompassing him in beauty too. He noticed that Raizel never had to look away, he could stare straight into the light and not flinch a single rectus muscle in his eye. The sunset melted over the mountains, tipping the snowy tops in slanted reds of the last light, making them luminous. Frankenstein and Raizel waited outside until every single drop of it floated away below the wonky horizon, and Frankenstein was filled with all the beauty Raizel saw. The world had so much beauty with him around, so much more than he could have appreciated alone on the barren grounds. Frankenstein suspected a desert could look like a heaven, a bog could be full of charm if he saw it through Raizel's red eyes. And he could. When he opened his mind, Raizel embraced him with unspoken fondness, and they looked at the world turn with all its wonders.

Perhaps a week or two had passed when Raizel stopped to watch fish flit around in a little manmade fountain and birds bob around it. Frankenstein bowed and excused himself. "I'll be back presently, Master, please take your time."

He strolled for a minute before hurrying back and bowing lower. "And please…please don't wander off… _too_ far, this time.

* * *

Frankenstein had been gone a long time. So long, the fish swam slower and the birds had stopped chirping, let alone still bathing in the shallow fountain. When Frankenstein wasn't around to explain his confusion or comment on the sights, time passed as it usually did for him. Slow. Yet, steadily, the next sunset was creeping nearer, and Raizel watched for any other straggling humans still making their way back to the village. He lingered in the same spot, lifting his head to watch clouds. They puffed with the slight illuminance of the sun, but Raizel simply couldn't enjoy the colours this time. The clouds quickly dispersed. Wind tousled his hair violently, making his cloak flap as he turned.

Raizel inhaled, hoped he wasn't being a nuisance. Carefully, he opened the connection.

His heart jolted against his chest and he gasped, all the air swivelling out of him in an abrupt change. His lips thinned into a grim line and his brows creased with worry. Sorrow swallowed him up in an all-encompassing veil, but he didn't stop it, just let it curl over his skin, like it did over Frankenstein. His breath shallowed, shallowed, and soon grew into a mechanical rhythm: not yet laboured, but still far from natural. Raizel thudded a foot in front of the other, pain that wasn't really his own oscillating over his senses. He closed his eyes and reached for Frankenstein…Frankenstein… _why are you sad?_

With slow, heavy steps, he followed his path with closed eyes and walked into the wilderness. He ambled forth, knowing and not really knowing what he'd find, what he'd see. It could be hideous; he wouldn't be phased. But he forged through the overgrown greenery nonetheless, flattening flowers without remorse as he gauged a way to a clearing. He emerged from the shade of the tress.

Frankenstein's crouched form greeted him with a stillness. Suddenly, everything within him became still as well. In this place hidden amongst evergreens, time was inconsequential.

A place like his spot before the window.

Before Frankenstein, a field of oddly crumpled stones were sunk into the ground with only the tops of them visible now. Age was carved into them, each one weathered by rainfall and wind and this still, silent place. Light slipped down from above the trees, leaking over the stones in a bringing of evening. Shadows grew at their roots, and Raizel noticed the weeds that had wedged themselves between the stone markers. The smell of smoke made him cringe. He saw the scatter of loose grasses pulled from the ground with dirt still clung to the roots. The wind brushed them against his shoes. Had Frankenstein been here the entire time, burning away over-grown moss and pulling weeds? The stones filled the entire clearing.

Frankenstein's hand was clutched loosely around a particularly eroded stone. Purple curled and caressed around his other hand, dug into the dirt, but he couldn't care for it in the least. Raizel waited for him. When the shadows grew longer, and the rest of the day drew shorter, Raizel hesitated. Frankenstein's sadness was not burning or throbbing — it was constant — the way a scar could remain red and inflamed for the longest time. Even after years. Many years. Raizel swallowed, and swallowed.

His soundless footsteps came closer, slowly reaching his presence out to Frankenstein. Frankenstein's head shifted as he felt it, the realisation unexpected, but not unwelcome. Frankenstein rose up, dusted himself off — he was dusty — and faced Raizel with an embarrassed smile.

"Master."

It was only after he'd just registered the angle of the sun and the coolness of the day that shock flitted over his face. He lead a hand to his chest. "How long have I kept you waiting?"

"Not long," Raizel replied.

Frankenstein turned up his lips weakly. "How long have you been watching?"

Raizel began to slightly sweat. "…Maybe…a little long…" he admitted, feeling rude.

But it was Frankenstein who became flustered, and for a supposedly wise old noble, Raizel felt absolutely moronic for not adjusting the connection a little. _I'm making him feel bad…oh dear oh dear oh dear-oh-d-…_

Maybe it was the fact that Raizel often forgot that people, humans, could see his emotions — read them whereas nobles felt them — and he wasn't doing any help trying to conceal them inside his mind. His worry was plastered all over his face: every line denting in consternation, every crinkle in his forehead borne out of heavy, vivid concern.

He was just so worried for Frankenstein. By now, Frankenstein was quite aware. He turned his head down, looking at Raizel's feet.

"I'm incredibly sorry to have kept you waiting. Please accept my humble apologies…"

"That is not needed," Raizel answered, his defences leaping quicker. Frankenstein finally realised he should stop that. It bothered him.

"Alright um…allow me to guide us back to the inn. You should get some rest, we'll be walking until I can hail some boats up the river….Unless I construct one…but that may take some time…"

"No."

"Oh. No, then. We can walk still walk the rest of the way."

"No. Not that."

"Master?" Frankenstein asked, bewildered. _What do you need me to do?_

Raizel lifted a hand and patted his shoulder once, twice, three times. He laid it there, firm and rigorous, until he lowered Frankenstein's shoulder. Frankenstein seemed to follow the movement, obediently bending under his weight — to his knees. Raizel's fingers suddenly dug into his shirt. He stopped him. Frankenstein stiffened in mid-motion, half-way to a kneel. He waited for instruction, trying to do whatever Raizel wanted him to do, but it didn't seem Raizel knew either. Raizel pulled him up before flinching his hand away.

 _Too much weight!_

 _What?_

 _…Nothing….I was trying to correctly pat your shoulder._

Frankenstein looked completely lost for a moment. He shifted a smidgen over so that Raizel could reach his shoulder better. Raizel lifted a cautious hand and rested it there. An awkward silence permeated the grounds.

"…Is this…" Frankenstein's jaw tightened at Raizel's nervous voice, "…not how humans show affection?"

"…"

Frankenstein slapped a dirty hand over his face and grinned into his palm. He didn't realise Dark Spear had long dispersed from it. Then he lifted his cleaner hand to mirror Raizel, patting him perfectly on the opposite shoulder. "Yes, yes it is. You're doing fine, Master."

He tilted his head to the side. "Now, should we leave before we lose the light? Master?"

"No," he said again. "That is not what you want."

"I…uh…" Frankenstein trailed off.

"You want to stay here a bit longer," Raizel said, eyes twinkling. "I will wait for you. I will wait for you however long you wish to stay here."

 _"Master?"_ his voice was a whisper.

His red eyes suddenly snagged up. "Unless — unless you want me to leave. Then I will leave you."

"No!"

"…"

"I mean…you can stay." Frankenstein's brows furrowed more. He corrected himself, "What I really mean is, I — _want_ you to stay."

Raizel managed another small step forward. Frankenstein beamed and motioned to the clearing. "Um, I should explain, this clearing…"

"You don't need to explain. I've seen this place many times."

"What?" Disbelief flooded the connection.

"In your dreams."

"Oh." He simmered down again. "Oh. Well…would you like to meet them?"

Raizel nodded. "Yes."

* * *

 **The Visitor**

White uniform and clothes passed by the open door. Footsteps tottered to a stark stop. Then the floorboards thumped again as speed picked up, and Regis was standing in the doorway.

"Raizel-nim?"

His eyes touched over M-21, but he didn't have the heart to say a thing. Regis withered and took a shifty bow. He left them sitting under the window. When he came back, the rest of the household came with him, including Rael.

"Are you both alright?" came Takeo's voice.

"We're ok. I think," M-21 croaked out.

Rael knelt down on one nervous knee. "We should help Raizel-nim get off the floor. Regis, get a seat."

"Wait," M-21 said, moving his arm off of Raizel, "Don't. Just…give him a moment. Give him a lot of moments."

Rael gave a rigid nod. Regis began to speak. "We…we were very worried for you, Sir. We were search—"

Seira clapped a hard hand over Regis's shoulder, and it took all the restraint in the world for him to not slap a horrified palm over his mouth. He realised 'we searched day and night for you,' was not the best thing to say right now.

"Errr, let's just sit down, guys. We're kinda suffocating him, c'mon." Tao immediately sat on the floor. After an awkward two seconds, Takeo joined him, and then Regis and Seira. Rael did so too.

"You…want to talk about it?" Tao asked tentatively.

M-21 eyed him questioningly, _really? You want him to 'talk' about it?_

"I'm sorry."

M-21's eyes snapped wide, and he slowly turned to Raizel. "What? _"_

"I am sorry to have left you all like that. In my panic…I just — I came back here."

"Hey, don't worry about it," Tao said, smiling, "if you didn't panic, I would have panicked over you not panicking." He blinked nervously. "You know that he didn't leave you on purpose. There's no way, _no way on earth,_ that he'd break his bond with you." Tao's voice grew pointed, "It was Faust - Tesamu. It was him and not you. None of this is your fault."

Raizel slowly lifted his head. But it was as if even that movement was a struggle, something that drained his life force, bit by bit. He didn't look like he fully believed what Tao had said, and that made Tao squirm under his sight. "It's just not. Nobody asked for his apprentice to come back from the dead and kill him, ok?" Tao said quite bluntly.

The stern look on Raizel put on his face turned sullen.

"Tao," Seira said softly, "the gift."

Tao quirked his lips, "Yeah, thanks." He fumbled his hands into his pocket, drawing out two items. Black jewellery casings reflected in Raizel's eyes, and the objects almost grew melancholic in Tao's hold.

"It's his. Well, it's yours, I mean. Boss hid this in his lab and told me instructions to give them to you… if he wasn't around and you used your power. He thinks of everything," Tao grinned.

He opened the first box. A black cross loomed out. Raizel reached a slightly trembling hand to take it. The moment it clasped onto left ear, the space in the room changed. Regis, Seira and Rael were as if a heavy weight had immediately been lifted from them, and they only realised now how tangible and potent Raizel's powers were. They had emerged from his thicket of fog. For nobles who had psychic minds, Raizel's grief shadowed all around him. Even the coldness subsided. Was this why Raizel lived alone for such a long time? Was this why nobles used to regard him with such a fear? Because Raizel's grief hurt. They couldn't begin to imagine what he felt like, when the mere spillage of his emotions were like _this._

The second box opened. A black ring gleamed up at them. Raizel slipped it on, and the nobles felt nothing from him. The sudden retraction of everything felt like the air was stripped of something that made this Raizel's room. Raizel sat back again, thumbing the ring vacantly.

"Grief," Takeo began to say, sick of the silence, "it goes away after awhile. It's like that for everyone. I know I didn't really have a sister, but it still sucked. One day, you'll be yourself again. You'll stop hurting."

M-21 continued for him. "Takeo's right. It's going to get better for you. It'll take time, a lot of time…but in the end, it'll be ok. Things will be ok."

"No." Raizel's voice was harsh. All attention in the room flew to him, and he almost wanted to retch. For a moment, his heart stopped — it all seemed to stop, and he couldn't bear another moment like this. He pushed himself up, clinging the wall to support, and the children clambered to their feet with him.

"You tell me that it will be better, that it will stop paining me after a while — a long while…but I know, that is wrong." This was wrong of him to say, rude of him to impose, but when the words tumbled out of his mouth, it was too late to stop. He wanted to be selfish, wanted to voice those terrible thoughts.

"Maybe that would be so, for human beings who carry the knowledge of their mortality, who live their entire lives knowing of the fleetingness of them…but it is not like that for me." Raizel closed his eyes, as if his own blindness could mask the pain on his face — but everything was there, every wrinkle of the brow and slant of his lip and scrunch of his nose. His lips trembled as he spoke.

"I…I will never stop grieving for Frankenstein."

His name felt eerie on his lips. "That is why you should not be here. I cannot…stop."

"Goddamnit Raizel-nim!" Tao had begun to shout. "Dammit! DAMMIT!" he spurted out, distraught. "I'm sorry? Alright? I'm sorry it has to be this way but we want to help you! We stand by each other we're-we're not going to leave you here!" He inhaled acutely, swallowing down. Tao threw his hands up, making a grand gesture. "If you don't go back to Korea, we're not either! If you want to grieve his death — I'll grieve him with you!"

Takeo took hold of Tao, calming him. He continued. "Raizel-nim…we came all the way here to bring you back, but if you don't want to go, then we'll stay with you, ok?"

Raizel couldn't answer, staring at him.

"…We bought your favourite blend of tea…."

Raizel smiled weakly. When his world turned around and swayed him off his feel like a broken rag doll, these people, these short-lived, honest humans, and noble children, they would cross oceans to find him and climb a thousand steps to help him. Raizel's heart curdled, smothering over with a glowing, aching sort of love. Something that he could only ever equate with Frankenstein, and he'd never thought he'd feel it again so strongly.

Regis managed a smile. "Cup ramyeon for dinner?"

"…Yes," Raizel answered.

* * *

When they reached the wide hallways of the mansions, Takeo turned to them all, "Ok, I'll ask Rael's brother for supplies for the next couple months…one of us can fly back and get anything we need in the house."

"What about the school?" Regis asked.

"One of us can keep things running at a time. We'll break the news as late as possible, once this 'freak storm' thing has blown over. No correlation," Tao piped up, all business-like again, "The school isn't a target anymore now that Boss and Boss' Boss are gone. Once a new principal is chosen, things are going to change. It's for the best if it just became a normal school."

M-21 nodded. He pushed the faces of Shinwoo, Ikhan, Yuna and Suyi out of his head for a second, before he realised — they'd never get another chance to see their Chairman or Rai again. For now, he didn't say a thing.

"We're going to have to get a lot of ramyeon," Tao said. "Cos we're not going to be eating anything else in this mansion for a while, I'm getting…" He wondered how long the comfort food would need to be provided…a hundred years? Two hundred? Will ramyeon still be available that far into the future?

They spread out into the house, salvaging anything useful for their stay.

* * *

.

 _One month later._

* * *

Nightfall blanketed Lukedonia with a shawl of starlight that made the night something beautiful to behold. A half moon beamed in the skies, as he watched the night deepen. His bonded was gone and yet the starts didn't go out. They blinked without meaning, without vitality now. The windows were shoved straight open, and the newly cleaned curtains brushed each side of his clothes as it rippled in the cool breeze. Cadis Etrama di Raizel listened, knowing that the mansion and all its inhabitants were asleep.

How like them all, to move their entire lives to be with him in this place. He wished he could speak to them more, instead of the couple broken utters he could manage, but when they fell all over the couch there, when they propped their feet over the desk, they'd smile and chat like it didn't matter to them. Being there with him was enough.

M-21, Takeo, Tao, Regis and Seira. They cared for him so much. Even Rael. Raizel lifted his gaze from the stars to the clouds. They silhouetted against the sky, wreathing the light when they slowly broke apart. He hadn't seen the school children in such a long time. He half-expected the doorbell of this mansion would ring too — Tao had installed one here — and the children to come chittering into this place, talking of moving pictures and cola drinks and school work. But they could never come to this place. They could never know what became of him. It was better if they'd forget. He could ask Seira to wipe their minds later.

He'll never see them again.

Teacups lay dry and stained on the low table. An electric lamp had being placed on the desk but it wasn't lit. This was enough for him, the dark and the quiet. He'd gotten used to it again, quite quickly. He should be thankful for that. Raizel's hair tousled with the wind. He closed his eyes, hearing the curtains flap and a pressure swivel before him. When he opened them again, a tall figure blocked out the moon. Long legs bobbed into a crouch on his sill.

"Hey, Raizel."

Raizel was looking at the man, but the man was looking past his shoulder, surveying the place.

"It's been a while. "

Raizel didn't move. The other man tilted his body to the side and stepped delicately off his window. Now he leaned over the sill, sticking his head out after checking the direction Raizel was facing. Tree leaves shuttered in the distance.

"Pretty night, right?"

A few minutes passed in silence.

"You never really talked much, even way back when. Well, I've come to see you," he said, head of silver still turned on him.

"How you've been holding up? Ok?" His voice took a fragile tone and his casual facade drooped a little. His head tilted down, and Raizel knew he wasn't really looking at anything out the window. "I heard about what happened." The man waited, not really expecting an answer.

Raizel finally spoke. "I would have never dreamed that we would meet each other like this again. As if nothing ever changed." He smiled, "Hello, Muzaka."

Muzaka gathered his arms off the window, swinging back to greet Raizel with a toothy grin. "And he talks."

But Muzaka's grin got heavier. He stepped forward. When he leaned his body over Raizel, Muzaka found he didn't try to pull back in the least bit. For some reason, he felt Raizel might have. But he didn't, he just stood there as Muzaka squeezed one arm to his back in an embrace.

"Just because I tried to kill you doesn't mean I'm not here for you right now," Muzaka said.

Raizel sighed into his shoulder, and seemed to pat a weak arm on his back. This surprised Muzaka. His eyes softened again. "It hurts. I know it does."

They separated. Muzaka strode over to the couch and slunk over it like he did all those years ago. And more. Before Frankenstein ever got here. Before Frankenstein was a thing.

He wasn't, anymore.

"Sorry, Raizel."

"For what?"

"Not coming sooner. When Ashleen died…"

Raizel's footsteps shifted off the floorboards, and Muzaka stared when he came to sit opposite him.

"When Ashleen died, I couldn't control myself. You're doing good."

"I finally understand how you felt, all those years ago," Raizel said.

"Yeah. You would now."

They sat in each other's company, and it felt alright. Just as aright as it was back then.

"Frankenstein. He was an amazing one. You know, Raizel, he contacted me once back then." Muzaka knew Raizel was listening. "It was after you did your job sentencing a noble. I don't know who. You beat yourself up pretty bad afterwards. Didn't eat or drink or something. I mean, I didn't even know you had started eating and drinking, but, yeah. I don't remember how long you'd had him already, but he found me in the middle of the rainforest in…I don't remember. I mean, it wouldn't be the same today, might not even exist anymore but—"

"Muzaka."

"Right. He came looking for me, all suit and bow in a _jungle,_ telling me to come visit."

Muzaka paused for a while, waiting for Raizel to say something. When he didn't, he continued, "He told me all sorts of things…you were sad, you were hurt, probably sick — can you even get sick? — end of line is, he wanted me to come cheer you up. He came out all the way into the middle of nowhere to find me, the werewolf Lord, whose own family couldn't even find him."

Another pause.

"You remember? I bought you fruit to eat.'

"Yes," Raizel said.

"The fruit was his idea."

"…"

"That was also when I realised you weren't influencing his mind at all." Muzaka frowned into the couch, mildly embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Raizel, I would never have thought that about you if it were any other human… but he didn't listen to a _single thing_ unless it came out of your mouth. That human was something else." Muzaka chuckled heartily, slapping the back of a hand to his forehead. "Honestly thought you were mind-controlling the guy!" Muzaka stifled himself. "Frankenstein was just…he cared about you that much."

Muzaka shifted to see Raizel again. Raizel seemed to be fiddling with his fingers. Which was strange, Muzaka thought. Raizel either stared and listened, or looked away and listened. Raizel was staring into his lap.

"It feels the worst when it's fresh, of course. Give it five hundred years, and it should dull a little. Five hundred more, it'll dull a little more. I've glimpsed those children of yours, I suppose. Remember after I got rid of whats-his-face? Grui and Gaitan or something like that?"

Muzaka blew out a sigh, and a wisp of silver fringe flew up. "You have a lot of people who care about you. You're not alone." Muzaka shifted on the couch, shrugging. "You'll feel better."

Raizel's eyes used to glow in the dark. He often made them do that, so you could see he was listening. His eyes were dark right now.

"Is that how it was for you?" Raizel's voice was a whisper across the room "Do you feel dulled, after Ashleen?"

Muzaka smirked a little, then dropped it. "I've woken up more recently than you, Raizel. My daughter's been dead for about five months for me. Nothing's changed."

Raizel's voice was leaden. "You still want to destroy the humans?"

"You betcha," Muzaka smiled.

"I want to destroy the Zeroth Elder."

Muzaka's silvery head moved dubiously to Raizel. "You do?"

"Yes."

The conviction in his voice made Muzaka tense. "Ok. Let's go."

Raizel furrowed his brow. "You want me to fight." Statement, not a question.

"I want you to get your revenge," Muzaka said, voice lowering an octave. "So then you can feel a little more accomplished, and then let me get on with mine."

"That will not happen."

"Yeah?" Muzaka jeered. "Fine then," he said simply.

Raizel looked away, disgruntled.

"Even if you won't let me get my revenge, I'm not going to rob you of yours."

Red eyes widened. Muzaka was still splayed over the couch. "I mean it. Whenever you want, I'll go kill the Zeroth Elder with you. Revenge would be good for however-much-soul you have left." He frowned. That wasn't meant to sound harsh but…without Frankenstein…how long could Raizel go on? Muzaka gulped dryly.

"I was going to wait until the children left this mansion," Raizel said, "But that's not possible. They care for me, they care for me very much. They won't leave me and I do not want to pain them."

 _"You're_ the one in pain, Raizel," Muzaka's voice was quiet. "I could _feel_ you from a mile away. I couldn't lose another second, eight hundred years ago. You've waited for more than a month. You're amazing, Noblesse."

"Muzaka…" Raizel muttered.

"Yes?"

"Come with me," Raizel asked. He laid every intent bare in his eyes, now. "Hold back my enemies as I fight the Zeroth Elder."

"I'm your friend. I got your back, Raizel." _Even if we have to fight in the future, I'll still help avenge your bonded with you._

"Thank you, Muzaka."

They fell back into a peaceful quiet. All of a sudden, Raizel rose. His footsteps tapped to the window again, and Muzaka sat up.

His red eyes began to glow, filled with a hard, immovable resolve. "I know what I want, Muzaka. Let's go, right now."

Muzaka rolled off the couch. "Alright. Lead the way."

"…"

"You don't know the way, do you?"

Raizel jumped out of his window, making the curtains flap wildly in his wake. Muzaka bounded out after him, landing on soft soil. "Well, how are we supposed to get where we need to be?!" He lifted his brows, confused.

Muzaka jumped up to the top of Raizel's mansion, where he was standing. Red eyes glowered against the moonlight, as if he was competing with it.

"Raizel?" Muzaka piped up.

"Dark Spear was stolen," Raizel's voice had an edge to it that made Muzaka want to stare.

All the time he'd known him, and he'd never imagined Raizel could feel like this. It was as if the side of him that he'd instinctively suppressed, right down into the blood and bone of him, was welling up. Perhaps it was because his soul was torn, and the most sensitive things were weeping out from invisible, open wounds. Instead, he darted his eyes atop the mansion, flitting between each spire. When Ashleen died, Muzaka went berserk. But with Raizel…Raizel was just broken and wrong.

"He cannot learn to hide Dark Spear's energy so fast. I can feel him."

Muzaka cracked his neck. He rolled his shoulders. "Let's avenge Frankenstein, then."

* * *

 _Notes_

Oh my gosh the tinkering I had to do to fit the flashback in this part. But it paid off, yayy.

I was kind of aww because canon got to Muzaka interaction before this chapter did lol. But it's still ok. I don't know if Muzaka would still call himself Rai's friend, they're a bit shifty, but here in fic he sure does. Like he said, just because they tried to kill each other doesn't mean that he's not there for him when Rai needs it. I like to think of him as Rai's supportive but inept jock friend, who'll take his side no matter what (unless something absolutely terrible terrible comes between them.) (LIke wanting to destroy all humanity.) No matter how they will settle their differences in the future, Muzaka isn't about to let Rai suffer. But then again his solutions to problems aren't all that great.

And yes - that was the first time Rai ever patted Franken's shoulder. I sped up this chapter so you guys can get to the next one sooner (Cos I like the next one and you guys will too).

Anyways, please review and make my night!

(Thanks General Zargon, Elims, nobody yet. YOu guys !)

\- earl


	27. The Dreamer

Thanks to Brissygirl~

I'd also like to credit 'Dreaming of a Black Fox' for the idea I cleaved of off them.

* * *

 **The dreamer.**

Snowfall trickled from the sky, a light, dainty precipitate that seemed harmless and airy all around, but cloaked everything despite it's white colour. The further in the distance he could see, the thicker and harsher the colour became. He was a man shrouded in the white of an after-blizzard. Nothing was forgiving here, from the fresh, unmarked carpet of snow to the lifeless branches of the dead forest nearby. Iced-up dew drops clung to the bottoms of them, crystallised the fork in the trunks and dribbled down to form icicles. He was glad it form stood out against the nothingness of the white. At least like this, he knew he wasn't blind.

Odourless and tasteless, all his senses were bland and bare. If it weren't for his head on the floor, he'd have trouble realising which way was up, which way was down. He floated between consciousness, nodding in and out of his own mind, though there wasn't much to be aware about. He couldn't even feel the cold anymore. The frostbite in his fingers and toes had long dulled into numbness, and even the redness in the skin seemed to have subsided into white as well. This was so familiar. _Why was this so familiar?_ He laid in the snowfield, too tired to think. His breath didn't even curl out as a white, heated haze against the cold anymore. He laid his head to sleep.

Then the crunch of snow sounded in his ears. He opened his eyes.

Red.

Bloodshot eyes stared back at him, inches from his nose. Yellow-hazel irises were dirtied with telltale veins, and they were unseeing, unknowing, pair of hardened corneas frozen and cracked over like ice. He sucked in deeply for the first time since he was aware he was still breathing, fear shooting up and warming his chest abruptly. Frost stuck to the roof of his mouth and melted in the back of his throat, and he jerkily pulled back from the corpse.

In one sticky, cleaving motion, somehow, he was upright.

The shoulder length blonde hair of the woman was strewn all over, and if he didn't wake right up to her face, he wouldn't have been able to tell who it was. He opened his mouth, trying to make a sound but his mind and brain weren't quite working together. The realisation delayed and he wished — before he could even tell what was happening — how he so badly wished he could get the image of the corpses's snow-chapped eyes and veiny sclera out of his head.

His shoulders scrunched, his weight buckled into the snow and he said the word before his mind could process what was unfolding—

 _"Mother!"_

But it was a child's voice that scrambled from his mouth. Within the second, he spasmed, ripping his eyes off his mother to stare at his hands. They were a child's hands, small and twitchy and unable to hold onto anything of his that mattered. They were unblemished, but not innocent — _god,_ he was never innocent. All of a sudden, he was eight years old again; when the hot tears came pouring he felt them dig scorch trails over his cold face; made up for all the oblivion in this place with his grief. He whimpered, touching over his mother's frozen neck, trying to brush back her brittle hair, and graze his fingers over the bite marks on her collar bone.

He huffed and huffed, taking in great gulps of crisp air though he didn't feel new, he didn't feel cleansed, and when he staggered up, finally giving up on his mother one more time, the field was no longer white. Spread across the snowy grounds was the village he grew up in. There was the baker whose bread was always flaky and sold for a bad price, he remembered how his mother used to haggle and tut; the blacksmith that clanged strange noises all the way past sundown, he never slept a good night when he worked; a little girl who always put left foot first in hopscotch and beat him when he started on his right, and he wondered why he had to remember every single detail of that godforsaken day, how he'd spent his childhood trying to escape the sound of his mother's last words:

"Run, Tesamu! You have to run now, alright?!" her breath was laboured, and he could feel it skim over his skin from this distance, her hands clamped on his shoulders.

"You have to run and don't you dare try to look back for a moment! Take this necklace, go, take it and sell it — it's worth something, at least, just run to the next village and don't ask for help!" He remembered her unintentional, pinching squeeze that left a mark on him, but he didn't call out even a little.

"We'll just kill all of those people too, don't get help. Run and hide, and then get as far away from this place as possible, alright?! Tesamu!"

Her low voice quivered as she clasped the necklace around him.

"I love you, Tesamu!"

He tugged on her clothes, like every little boy did, tugged on it harshly. "Now go! I don't ever want to see you again! You have to be strong now, understand? Go Tesamu!"

But he did see her again — half-shrouded by snow and blood, not all her blood but he wondered whose it was, what creatures it belonged to — and the rest of his village lying without breath, without heartbeat, on the snowy field where he used to play with wooden swords and rusty iron shields, where he used to dream of slaying monsters. Where he used to dream of being born a nobleman, being a knight. He used to dream of meeting Lords and serving gods. Now if he could take it all back, he would.

Another crunch of snow sounded, soft and slick and sifting, and he remembered this part, but that made him ready, he'll turn around and summon up his bright aura and—

Red, pupil-less eyes loomed out from the trees.

Tesamu shuddered.

Because when he was eight years old, he didn't control an underground organisation from the shadows, he didn't wield magic powers like solar flares and he didn't have anyone to call out to or any memory to hope back on or a single god to pray to.

Its eyes were red, but they were not bloodshot — they were blood-basked. This was the monster that he'd always dreamed of slaying, with their soaked neck and chin and rags, their long sickle claws and leathery, tough skin that stretched over their faces like it was too tight to fit, too abnormal for him to stomach. Tesamu was eight years old and paralysed, as if the ice outside had finally penetrated into his body and frosted over his slow flowing, purple-growing arteries.

He felt the cold now.

He felt the cold carve snowflakes over his soul.

But mutants didn't have mind control abilities; why was he paralysed?

Why couldn't he fight?

He'd spent the rest of his life fighting because when he closed his eyes, he hated seeing mutants roam free. When he was eight years old, one bloody mutant decimated his entire village. He had no idea that the same thing was happening all over the earth, and when he walked out of that snowy field, he'd learnt that there were more mutants than he could count, crawling all over the lands. He had come face to face with the nobles that created them, sullied mankind.

But he wouldn't walk free off of this red-white field now.

The mutant licked its dry lips, though it had sucked more warm blood than the eight year old could have guessed. The mutant walked towards him, fangs protruded. Tesamu didn't close his eyes. If he closed his eyes now, it'll be worse when he opened them.

He learnt his lessons fast.

He was a smart, smart boy.

All it took was a blink. Black suit and long bow and blonde hair jumped out stark against the snow, enveloping him in gold aura — so bright it left white spots in his eyes when he blinked again. The mutant was dead. Its body hit the ground. It was already cold.

Tesamu's chest wrenched. He did not know this man yet, did not know how he saved him, but, somehow, he still called out,

 _"Professor?"_

Frankenstein turned, but it wasn't blue eyes that stared down. His eyes were red. He had a mouth of fangs. He had skin of ivory. He leered down at the boy.

Frankenstein too, was a mutant.

* * *

A howl caught in his throat, choking him awake. Amber eyes snagged open. His dream still swam just beneath the surface. Tesamu heaved off the bed, but immediately stumbled. He sunk to the floor, panting.

"Haah." _Just breathe._ "Haah." _Just breathe_. "Haah." _You can kill hundreds of mutants with a flick of your wrist now._

 ** _Yes, you can kill hundreds of the Union with a flick of your wrist. You can kill hundreds of nobles with a flick of your wrist. You can kill hundreds of werewolves with a flick of your wrist._**

 ** _Flick your wrist, Tesamu._**

He finally opened an eye to search his surroundings. Dark Spear's scorch marks snaked all across his chambers. Purple shards gleamed from the peeled walls. The room was in ruins. Tesamu willed the shards to dissipate.

 ** _Flick your wrist, Tesamu._**

"Not… _now,"_ he muttered, shaking his head. The movement only served to dizzy him more, so he stilled himself, hands clenched at his sides. "The Union…we can destroy the Union later…we-we- we need it right now."

Anger that was not really his flickered up, and he could almost feel something bristle, poke out from his back. It felt like Dark Spear was ready to spill out from under him.

 ** _You defend the Union?_**

Tesamu writhed, sinking his forehead to the floor. He shut his eyes, snarled weakly, crinkled his brow and opened his mouth as if to yell. He went through the motions, twisting his neck from side to side in involuntary spasms, wringing his hands into his clothes until he ripped them. He made sure to make no noise.

"No! Not…yet!" he strained through his teeth.

 ** _You hate the Union. We hate—_**

"I know! I know I know I know. They created you. But I need the damned Union…I used it to get so far so I can kill…"

 ** _Cadis Etrama di Raizel still lives._**

 ** _You failed, Tesamu._**

Dark Spear came in like an incoming tide again, breaking over Tesamu, preening the stillness off his body. He trembled. He might have felt a finger trace a line down his throat. Tesamu retched with his mouth closed.

"No."

 ** _You failed us, Tesamu._**

"I will…"

 ** _We Curse You._**

"I stayed with the Union to see them carry out their plan — to banish the Noblesse!"

 ** _…Tess…_**

"They failed! So I'll make sure to finish the job." Tesamu grit his teeth together, trying to force himself back into power. "I swear it. _I swear it._ "

 ** _Tesamu-_**

 ** _dear,_**

 ** _Your promises are wearing thin._**

He picked himself off the floor. Tesamu flared his purple energy, making Dark Spear keen and course through his body. He disciplined himself, closing the door on Dark Spear, summoning every inch of himself to quell them. Dark Spear went back out into the distance. For the time being.

"The Union, I'll dismantle in the future. Right now, ridding the Noblesse is our top priority. And then Frankenstein will help me take the rest of them down. I only stayed…to could keep an eye on the nobles and bide my time." He leaned his weight onto a dented desk. The scenes had played out too vividly, no matter if they really happened or not. Cold sweat stuck hair to the back of his neck. He'd found his teeth chattering upon gathering his senses. He was shaken. Tesamu willed himself to regain control. Slowly, surely, he looked up, eyes focussed on a fixed point. "The Noblesse is distraught, I've already got him where I want him. He'll meet his end." Tesamu relaxed. "For him, there is only deathward."

 ** _We curse you._**

 ** _We curse you._**

He could feel them writhing again at that, winding around each rib until his ribcage became some intricate dream catcher — one that was strung up, lovingly, by Dark Spear. They liked to make him hurt. _Was this how it always was for the Professor too?_ Tesamu couldn't imagine. But he didn't need to. He could live it.

 ** _We curse you._**

 ** _We curse you._**

Even when he told them what they wanted to hear, Dark Spear's incessant chanting swept up in an echoing harmony: in mocking, or in triumph, he didn't think there was a difference to them. Tesamu wondered just how they had hollowed him out, inside, for their voices to be able to sing like that. A condemnation serenade, or a reverse lullaby to lull him into his restless, inescapable dreams.

 ** _We curse you._**

But he was always a dreamer. For a thousand years, he dreamed of freeing his saviour, dreamed good dreams of freeing Frankenstein from his bonds. Now Frankenstein was free, but Tesamu could never dream sweet things again.

 ** _We curse you._**

 ** _We curse you._**

 ** _We curse you._**

 ** _We curse you._**

 ** _We curse you._**

 ** _We curse you._**

 ** _We curse you._**

 ** _We curse you._**

* * *

The sound of computer hums had worked into the cavities of his mind. He latched onto it, concentrating on the _whirr-click-whirr_ of them: lab machines and medical tech and intricate equipment; he pushed everything else out. When the blur of whispers and the pinprick pangs of needles stopped jabbing, he concentrated on the beeps of a monitor somewhere near him. Rhythmic and mechanical, the _beep, beep, beep_ of it kept his mind ticking, his insides moving, and it was enough to be lulled on another plane where there was nothing but the sound.

He felt nothing, for a long time being.

Just a numbness.

Perhaps he should be thankful for that.

Frankenstein pried his eyes open. Grey splotches blurred in his vision, and they sharpened only after a ridiculously long while. He lay there, just blinking, finally managing to concentrate on two things at once. Blinking and beeping. He shifted his head to the side, looking at the grey world unfurling before him. He was in a lab of some sort, he confirmed, behind bars in a rather open area before something of a main-control-looking room. There were no other prisoners. His heartbeat went to jump again, and the _beepbeep-beeping_ suddenly spiked too.

 _Oh._

So he was hooked onto some kind of a life support monitor. Tesamu had wanted to save him.

 _Tesamu._

Frankenstein's eyes began to water as he finally let himself remember, the sorrow flowing into him after he'd tried to scrunch them to a corner, sweep them under the rug so he didn't have to deal with it all. He carried the fact with him now, feeling the lightweight, but still sickly burden of it — delicate and alive like a finch. _No,_ a crow, about to peck him clean in the scraped out space between his ribs. The space that left him empty and vacant with only half a soul and no ghosts to cage.

His contract with Cadis Etrama di Raizel was broken: he, Frankenstein, was no longer his bonded anymore. Frankenstein let out a whimper, wondering if this was all fixable, but then sucked in air to stop himself. Frankenstein had sulked for one thousand years — he was so alone. But now? He really was. For the first time, he was just one single man.

Alone, and alive.

That thought sent his eyes snapping open wide. His eyes focused to the dark immediately. Frankenstein swallowed, touching pinky and index and middle finger to thumb, and then scratching himself with his nail. _Good,_ still functioning. Nerves still working, muscles still fine, co-ordination ok for that much movement. He sat up, separating from the hospital-like bed for the first time in who-knew-how-long. The inverted world corrected, and he could make things out clearly though it was still dim.

Frankenstein was alone. But he was still here.

 _Master._

 _I'm not going to abandon you._

Frankenstein held onto that thought, something that was careful and hopeful, calming him. "Master," he spoke aloud. Suddenly, it was like he was back in the Duomo Cathedral, fumbling into it after being chided on by that Florentine innkeeper and speaking vaguely to the spark inside him. Saying it out loud was like saying a pledge. Frankenstein had honestly fed himself to Dark Spear. He'd thought he'd never see Raizel again, that that was his end. But now he could still return to him. Now he still could. A small smile played on his lips.

Through his battered and bruised insides, perhaps everything seemed bearable because he felt hungover, almost. He'd slept off a dozen or so pain-killers pumped into him and he knew, intricately, what that should feel like. A pulsing throb ate at the base of his skull, but he thought nothing of it compared to the gaping hole in his chest. He felt scooped out, stripped bare. This should be nothing compared to the things Dark Spear gifted him with, and still nothing compared to reaching out to find tattered ends of someone else's mind. But then why did it _irk_ him so much? Suddenly, it was as if the high subsided, and he winced into his hands. Was the beeping in the room becoming louder? Was the buzzing in his head real? Or just imagined? Was what he was seeing a mirage? Why was everything so dark?

He'd much prefer the _voices._

The silence cut him like a scalpel; not the silence from the outside, but from within him. He was a pit-less, mangled mess inside, but the vacancy there was eerie. Frankenstein got to his feet and leaned his hands on the bars — this was still a prison. He was haunted by chased away ghosts, and he almost wanted them back. He didn't know how to function without Dark Spear's dull roar in his labyrinthine head, or their constant voices trying to convince him, he was crazy.

So they were right all along, he actually wanted them back; he _was_ crazy.

Without Raizel, without Dark Spear, his body felt foreign.

Frankenstein kept himself there, reorganising his mind, trying to relearn how to move his body and think his thoughts with only one consciousness and nothing to contend with, no one to give way to. One thought kept him going now, and he'd mouth it every so often so he could keep on ticking, just like how he'd done those eight hundred years.

 _I'll find you, Master._

He immediately got to work: the first thing he needed to do was to reacquaint his body to how it was before Dark Spear, or at least function without having to be constantly on guard for mental attacks. It wouldn't be an easy process - Frankenstein had spent years of his life learning to exist as a host for malevolent souls, and years more on how to handle their power. He'd had to reconstruct himself from the ground up, including petitioning his consciousness and parts away for a flimsy peace, sacrifice things he could afford to lose.

* * *

Frankenstein came to, doused in the grime of a rampage, no fanfare or flourish as he realised he'd won. Days and weeks would go missing in a blink of an eye. Bits and pieces welled up: parts of a cloudy sky, a crowd of mutants, a field of grass, shredded clothes. He had his soul weapon that rivalled that of those Clan Leaders. Dark Spear still laughed at him, laughed at him, laughed with him. _**You win this time, Frankenstein...**_ And then his hands spontaneously burst into flames. "I know, I know, you curse me."

* * *

Frankenstein inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, aura finally flowing out with it. It felt corrupted. A rust-yellow instead of bright gold, raw and scabby like strips of dried skin stretched over a hollow carcass and empty ribcage, weathered away by centuries of hardened grudges he'd invited in with open arms. It felt flogged, stripped back and leeched, yet it pulsed with some of the intent and hope and vitality it once possessed, gleamed with some of the glory of his golden heyday. When he was a hero to his people. He remembered the wonder he felt, producing glow-buggish twinkles with a snap of his finger, the first time a breakthrough like that shattered all the supposed limits and rules of humanity. He remembered cultivating it, developing it into a fiery glow and drawing halos in the air with its brightness before it dissipated. He was proud of his work.

Frankenstein's aura used to be wonderful.

He bought out the flickering beige, pooling it, shaping it, testing out how the mouldy aura worked again. Frankenstein tapped his fingers and swished his arms as if tuning a fine instrument. But his aura felt lanky and unrefined. It had been so long that he didn't even recognise its feeling when Tesamu duplicated his work. He hardly recognised the twinge of pride at that thought. But it didn't matter. Tesamu's bright aura was gone, now, too. Frankenstein shook the thought from his mind. He needed to relearn how to breathe, how to move, how to think, with just him tucked away in his brain. He needed to build himself up enough to fight back.

Fight Tesamu.

 _"Guh-_ stop," Frankenstein shuddered.

 _Right. No Dark Spear to argue with._ At least now, he could tell all those thoughts were his.

He looked through the bars.

The drab beige of aura emitting from his hands looked like a smokestack to him. He had a sense of foreboding that this might not ever go away when he awoke. Frankenstein bought a hand full of blonde hair before his eyes, and it was bone-white. His fingers were snowy. The cell was grey. When he looked out past the chrome and silver bars, all that shadowed him were varying layers of leaden greys and dark mercuries, dizzying him like looking at a pastel Monet painting. Except something momentous was missing and he couldn't see the thing that made it beautiful.

He was awake, but everything seemed dreamy and soft. He thought back to those coma patients he had cared for before; when they opened their eyes, it wasn't the same world that they left. Was this how Raizel had felt, waking up after all those years and the world was so remote?

All that emerged before Frankenstein's eyes was black and white.

The world that descended upon him was monochrome.

But he shifted to see the flat line on the monitor he had unhooked himself from. He frowned. That couldn't be right. But it was. A few paper clips jumped out at him from the far table outside. Some coloured pins. Bright buttons. He looked to the flat line again. It was red. Frankenstein smiled. The only thing he could see — popping up like black against white or white against black — was red. Any shade of red, from the garish glow of the monitor, to the dark colour of the machinery buttons, he saw.

But he remembered, the very moment Raizel's soul was ripped from his, he remembered on top of all the influx of emotions and pain, he saw the world drain of colour right before his eyes and the magnificent amber of Tesamu's irises fade from centre to end — all dissolving into grey.

Black and white.

Grey and red.

He wondered what Raizel saw.

* * *

Notes.

He's...aliiiiive. (Giggles.) Franken's been out for a few months straight but now he's here. And he could choose to sulk but also has another chance to find Rai so: Rai takes priority. Tesamu shouldn't expect the pros of Dark Spear without getting their cons. The cons which Frankenstein has trained for years and years to overcome, and just barely, at that.

Fun fact - I almost named this entire fic 'The Dreamer.' It was supposed to allude to Franken's nightmares, Tesamu's ambitions, and Rai's 820 year slumber. 'Who is the Monster' was legit the most last minute thing ever. LIke, I was ready to post and then changed the name at the last moment, nodded, and then continued. It alludes to the three of them and also Dark Spear. I'm so glad I made the change heheh.

Dreaming of a Black Fox wrote a naruto fic called 'Shu' which has this interesting and lowkey sad scene where it's revealed that a character lost their colour sight. Except for the colour red, for some reason, which isn't possible in real life. Being completely unable to see colour/ to only see black and white is rare.

Hyracia - Oh I'm elated! Thank you! I write to get out them feelings.

nobody yet - ;D Yes the timeline problems...you'll have to suspend your disbelief for this one. I guess Muzaka managed to bust himself out and then met up with Crombel who stabilised him. I wanted to write it so that it felt like Muzaka had been out and about for a while (5 months was it?) - he'd already met Rai once or twice and had seen the children before.

general zargon - Muzaka, despite everything, still cares about Rai. But he's completely fuelled by his most immediate emotions and has to vocalise it no matter what. So he's brash and 'do first think later.' This Muzaka is your ride or die bro.

The Midnight cat of the Dark - here you go, take a Frankenstein being mostly ok.


	28. Indoctrinated

Hello. If you like historical and geographical accuracy then you're going to have to suspend your disbelief. Excuse me.

* * *

 **Indoctrinated**

 _A distant memory:_

Bloodied fist connected with soft jaw, but when his head touched down, he knew the force behind the bash was a listless mockery of what is should have been. It was suppressed, enormous power that blew back his hair and cracked his baby teeth deliberately held back. Not enough to dislocate his jaw, not enough to break the mandible, but just enough to bruise and swell; and he'll see his mission every time he looked in the mirror. Every time he took a bite of bread or a shake of his head. Just enough to make him fear for his life until the next time they came to him, and he'd do anything for them just to make it stop.

He was just a boy.

Cold floor under his hands. Hot blood running from somewhere and internal bleeding. They made they wanted from him loud and clear, and he didn't for a second believe that they wouldn't follow up on their threats. A man in white Union uniform smiled softly down at him, motioning for the bigger, brutish man to stop.

"So, Tesamu-dear, you know what to do?"

Tesamu rolled onto his stomach, refusing to let him see the filth running from his nose. "I kno-know," he stuttered, slurring his words out over his swollen tongue. He'd bitten into it too many times. "Fer-anken-stein…is a traitor. I'll perforhm my duties without fail. It's my job to steal back our knowledge."

"You're a genius, boy, did anyone ever tell you that?"

The Union official flippantly flicked his wrist. The brute bore down on him. _Crack, bam._ The toe of a shoe connected with end of his ribs and Tesamu let out a yelp. He rested his forehead on the ground, his necklace digging into palm of his hand. He held onto it, held onto something. _It'll all be over soon. It'll all be over..._

"Alright now, and how often will you report back to us?"

A rough hand picked him up by the scruff of his neck and pulled him back onto his feet. His knees felt weak, ready to buckle at any moment. "I-I will try…at least once a week. Everyday, if — if I can manage."

"I'm so sorry, Tesamu-dear, but if we don't hurt you enough, it won't be very convincing, would it?"

He tensed up again. "…No."

A heel dug into his back, throwing him forward, and he could feel his insides sloshing from side to side as both of his hands grazed over the ground.

"Are you ready Tesamu? You need to be careful, always careful. You don't know what kind of lies that abomination will try to feed you. You know who he is."

"…Yes," he croaked, swallowing back tears. "Frankenstein is humanity's traitor and the Union's traitor. He's a murderer and a thief."

The Union man nodded, satisfied with that answer. "We have one opportunity and one opportunity only to destroy our enemy. Tesamu _-dear,_ of every part of this plan, you're the most integral proponent."

"To gain his trust until I can draw him out," Tesamu said. He was glad he practiced the words in his mind before this. Tesamu managed a wry smile. "He'll be Union's in a matter of time, Sir."

"You make us proud Tesamu. Your name will go down in history — you're the saviour of mankind, you know. I hope you're proud, Tesamu-dear."

It hurt, he bled, but behind it all — the acting tough, the strict obedience, the confident remark, he thought he was doing something important to help his people. His people, who had been mercilessly slaughtered by mutants this man had created.

 _Frankenstein._

 _Frankenstein._

He mulled the name over in his head, seared it into the very recesses of his subconscious where light was day and dark was night and _Frankenstein_ , was evil. He convinced himself he was doing this for the greater good, that a little pain wouldn't hurt too bad. He had convinced himself he was strong and brave, like his mother wanted him to be.

He had convinced himself.

But deep down, past the months of the Union's conditioning, of mindless indoctrination, he did anything they wanted him to if it meant he could live. If destroying Frankenstein was going to aid mankind and avenge the dead, that was what he'd do if they ordered.

He just wanted to live.

* * *

 _In the snow:_

When he opened his eyes, he didn't know what he'd expected. Gnarled teeth? Matted hair? Red eyes?

So this was what an abomination looked like? Long hair, neat black bow and blue stare.

He just looked human.

The traitor dropped the body of the mutant staged there by the Union like a flimsy rag doll. He was reminded of that girl back in his village when people were still alive: that girl who could beat him in every single game of hopscotch drawn in the dirt they played. He held onto her stuffed figurine when it was her turn and it was soft and breakable between his powerful fingers. He could make her yell if he squeezed the doll too hard and made it's fabric head roll. A mutant, one of those things that destroyed everyone whose name he'd ever learned in his short lifetime — and the traitor took it down with a twist and a snap. Just like that doll.

There was a grind of wood, the wind of a tossing motion ruffling his hair, and he was drenched in light. Through his non-blackened eye, he saw the traitor lift his hiding place and throw it to the side. The traitor's back was towards the mutant and Tesamu couldn't help but squirm under the man's self-assurance. One twist, one snap, and the mutant was surely dead. It was barely a fight. Why bother checking?

His blue eyes widened in sudden surprise. They darted up and down, skimming over every inch of his sunken body, and it was only then that Tesamu remembered what he must have looked like. His upper lip was split, he could feel the bruises with the slightest movement he made and for once, he was glad for the cold. He couldn't feel much else. The traitor's lips drew back into a grim, spiteful expression. But then the second passed and his entire body drooped.

"Tu es en _sécurité."_

What was he saying? Tesamu shook his head fitfully. He didn't understand.

The traitor looked down, pursing his lips. Tesamu didn't understand why he looked so downcast. _Wasn't that kill easy for him?_ Tesamu opened his eyes wider, taking in his image and totally resigned to his fate. He'd read every file on the Union's traitor and understood: this man was dangerous, ruthless and merciless. His cover was immaculate but that was what worried him. With this man, there was nothing he couldn't or wouldn't do to him.

"Je bent veilig," the traitor tried again.

The traitor's lips turned up into a smile. His body was rigid, his brow was wet, his fingers hovered in a way as if his first instinct was to reach out, touch him, but he wasn't sure if he was allowed to. But then he wiped his dirty hands all over his nice, clean clothes and slowly, gently, offered one to Tesamu.

 _"Er...erm_...Olet turvassa?" A stroke of panic crinkled his face. It occurred to Tesamu that he hadn't being speaking one language. He looked like he was racking his mind for something. A sense of urgency crossed his face.

"Sei al sicuro?

"Du bist sicher?

"Et dixistis liberati sumus?"

 _Oh._ Recognition lit up his eyes for a millisecond. Tesamu didn't say a word.

The traitor's hands were warm; his hands were frostbitten. Another something flashed through the traitor, and pair of small hands were squeezed between pair of hot hands.

 _"Omnia tuta._ You're safe now," he said, familiar sounding words flowing out of his mouth, "you're safe, you'll be alright. It's dead. You don't have to be scared anymore…"

But _this_ was scaring him. The traitor suddenly let go, throwing his hands back to himself. The startled look twitched off his face. He took off his black coat. He quickly draped it over Tesamu. He stopped hesitating and took Tesamu's trembling hands again. He squeezed them, as if he could steal away the frostbite onto himself. Tesamu felt so scared. It shouldn't be this _easy._

"No, _no-no,_ don't look back there. Look at me, yes, look at me," the traitor chimed in, shaking his hands between his. He followed his orders. Tesamu looked him straight in his eyes, and when he did,

"Everything's going to be alright."

He rubbed his thumb in small circles, rubbing the blood flow back into his hands. "You're going to be alright, you'll…You have my word," he said like he meant it, like he wasn't so good at lying.

"You're safe."

Tesamu almost believed it.

"You don't have to say anything. I…you're very hurt. I need to put my arms around you and carry you away from here. Alright? I'm going to get you out of here, I promise." That made his expression tighten, and he clung onto that word. "I promise I'll get you out of here. I promise you'll be safe. _I promise."_

That smile came back, slow and careful and doing it's absolute best.

"My name is Faust."

 _There it was. The lie._ But this was good. When he told him his real name, then he'd know when to start his mission.

 _"Te_ …samu."

"Tesamu," he repeated jovially. "Tesamu," he said again, lifting him from the squalor of the ruins. "That's a nice name," he blurted, trying to keep the flow of words going. "And how old are you, Tesamu?"

"I…maybe eight?"

"Oh." Tesamu didn't see him frown, though he thought he might have. "You must be hungry. Let's go get some food into you first, right?"

"Alright."

"And then some better-fitting clothes. I can make you something in any colour you like. What's your favourite colour, Tesamu?"

A timely silence passed.

"…I don't know."

"That's ok. Have a think on it. Think of what your favourite colour is. Take all the time you need…"

Tesamu laid his head upon his chest, feeling the man's steadying heartbeat lull him into a false sense of security. He let himself succumb. He simpered faintly. When he looked up, the traitor's smile broadened. How could such warm hands have deprived so many of their lives?

 _Frankenstein,_

 _Frankenstein,_

That name had stuck with him, drilling into where he didn't need to think anymore — just know, just feel — and that name echoed up within like a reverse prayer, a curse word, something he thought of every time those white-clad men sent a swift smack on his neck, a quick jab behind the knee;

 _Don't forget your mission._

This was what he was trained for. He held it close to him, but when the name came to him now,

 _Frankenstein,_

Tesamu thought, it didn't match the face of the man carrying him with all the care, all the tentativeness he could only ever equate with his mother. Or his village, or all the things far, far away from the battleground. He learnt to trust the traitor. And that he wasn't very good at betraying people.

But him?

 _Oh._

* * *

Tesamu, I give over to you, the vast information needed for you to complete your studies, and further your path in the changing world. Use it wisely, and let your good sense guide you.

46.2000° N, 6.1500° E

I love you, dearly, Tesamu,

Frankenstein.

* * *

 _Another memory, less distant:_

He remembered the harsh clasp of hand on his shoulder, the way nails dug into skin through the fabric of his thin clothes and the hard, warning squeeze as they finally let go.

 _"Good morning,_ forgive us for summoning you so early today."

He'd grown up now; he was smarter, he was stronger, better at lying than ever before. Yet still so scared and so powerless. He'd long memorised his lifeline, and he remembered reciting it in his head like a mantra.

 _Forty six point two, zero, zero, zero degrees north; six point one, five, zero, zero degrees east…_

Tesamu had so badly wanted to keep the Professor's handwritten note tucked under the pillow of his cot, hidden in the folds of his clothes, or wedged into the crack of his wall. But it was all too risky. He'd burnt it the second he could recite it forwards, backwards, when skipping every other number.

 _…Forty six point two, zero, zero, zero degrees north; six point one, five, zero, zero degrees east…_

"Give us your necklace, Tesamu."

Those words stirred nothing from him. Not a rise of his brow or a twitch of his skin or catch of his breath. But his mother's words sounded in the back of his mind to _Run, Tesamu._ He blinked once and said nothing. Tesamu undid the first button of his shirt, taking off the worthless necklace. He tried not to hold it like a treasure. Tesamu willingly gave it up without a fight, without another thought, without another word or any shred of pathetic dignity left to cling his teeth on.

"Here, Sir."

"Thank you."

"May I ask how that necklace may be of service to the Union, Sir?" The words slipped out of his mouth against his sense of self preservation. He regret it immediately.

White-clad soldiers shuffled uncomfortably. The guard behind him put a heavy hand on his shoulder. Tesamu didn't even flinch when he felt it. _"Is it your place to ask questions? Don't try to-"_

"—Tesamu-dear! Of course _you_ may ask," the Union official smiled. The hand lifted from his shoulder. "The traitor, Frankenstein, is still alive in Lukedonia."

Tesamu felt like his heart might have skipped a beat. His throat clenched. He could only hope they didn't notice. Tesamu didn't nod his head.

"And we believe this will be the key to his downfall. How dreary he's still a nuisance. You've done your mission so well, Tesamu. None of us expected him to be able to survive in Lukedonia. This necklace will be handed over to the nobles." Tesamu watched him thumb over the chipped pendant. "It's quite humorous, I must say. He makes enemies wherever he goes. The nobles were _more_ than glad to destroy him for us." The man smiled again, furrowing his brows. He thought he was happy. He thought he ought to be happy. This was all a result of his work.

Tesamu smiled back.

Nobles would touch his mother's necklace. The Professor would be tricked. Tesamu's eyes flitted onto the worthless piece of obsidian ore on the necklace. He didn't imagine his mother's voice.

Inside, he was screaming.

* * *

 _In the end:_

He stepped into the open. He was a top asset to the Union and he'd planned for this escapade for years. A waterfall poured from the rocks from many metres up high. It churned the white waters below, making it swirl and splash, sending up a mist-like spray to waft over him.

Tesamu recited the co-ordinates. He looked at his compass. He peered over the map.

 _…This was it._

This was what the Professor had left him.

 _A waterfall?_

Tesamu stood there for a moment, watching the curtain of water split as it tumbled down the falls. Water tickled over his nose. Where could a bunker be hidden under here? The soil was damp, the gravel was loose and the waterfall would obstruct everything. He sat down, scratching a sharpened piece of charcoal over the map again.

 _46.2000° N, 6.1500° E_

The charcoal intersected right before him. Right over the waterfall.

Tesamu kicked off his shoes. _No way, Professor._ He trekked towards the falls, taking note of how hard it was to find this place and how isolated it was. The distance between the out-jutting path of rock and the glassy cascade of the waterfall was perhaps half a metre wide. Just enough to walk through to the centre without getting crushed. Tesamu side-stepped against the cliff, reaching a little hollow behind the middle of the falls. It was a tiny space.

 _Tesamu, I give over to you, the vast information needed for you to complete your studies, and further your path in the changing world._

He looked around the rocky walls. One particular indentation loomed from the side. Exactly like the one installed in the underground bunker, the one Tesamu used to get to his and the Professor's rooms. He didn't see it at first. It was placed too low in comparison to his height, now. Tesamu smiled sadly. He tugged on the familiar contraption, opening the up the wall behind the waterfall. He expected nothing less of the Professor. A spiral staircase fed into the dark, but the moment the stone steps finished shifting into position, lights flickered on.

Tesamu ambled down the steps. Just like the bunker, his footsteps echoed across the grounds, summoning up a ghostly mirage that could only be heard and not seen. But it wasn't like the labyrinth. He reached the end of the tight space, stepping into the open. He opened his mouth without making a sound. Behind the waterfall was a series of gouged out hollows, some part of the natural cavern system, but some were too straight and perfect, obviously constructed so that the platforms spaced out in the large expanse could support the weight. Rock and stone were weathered into smooth, luxurious-looking constructions, and Tesamu could make out a few walls or shelves carved out of limestones and gypsum. Even the bedding planes and faults of the area he was standing in were fashioned into something like exquisitely cut stone, fit for something grand, like a court of a King.

Long columns stretched from the floor to the peak, securing different jut-outs and levels of platforms over the caverns. Amidst the high ceiling, hanging lights were strung up between the bumpy extensions of stalagmites and other rough cave formations, and Tesamu wondered how it was possible to harness electricity in a place like this. How to etch into stone and create a palace.

How to give up your life's work for a child who'd betrayed you.

 _I love you, dearly, Tesamu,_

 _Frankenstein._

Over the patterns of flow-stones and natural columns, the rock was purposefully shaped into shelves. Across every platform, across every over-hanging stage and rocky cliff, were shelves, and shelves of books. The vast expanse of the cavern system were stacked to brim and overflowing with information.

An entire library.

The Professor's mind was laid out right before him. Tesamu spent an age in there, lounging over a furnished sitting area and inspecting the different makes of microscopes, reading the neat labels on each glass jar and pouring himself over scrolls, and books, and theories, and hypothesises. When he paused for a moment, on the third level overlooking the bottom ring, paved over with damp floorboards, Tesamu sat back. He stared at the numbered files, stared at the page of human experimentation he had out: _maintaining cell structure when fusing foreign energies — attempt 142._

Water dropped onto the page, but he didn't look to the stalagmites above. Tesamu stared at everything around him and cried.

He cried, and his sobs echoed off in the distance only to return to him louder and more wobbly than when it left him; he cried until he didn't have a tear left to shed. He huffed, alone in the open space, chest still churning and tugging at stupid things he ought not to think about, non-existent things; like ever seeing the Professor again, or ever fixing the world like the Professor had always wanted.

Frankenstein had dared envisage a world where humans could be free of nobles. A world with no mutants or infected and vampires plaguing the earth, causing death and disease. And for that, he was taken. Taken, and turned into a prisoner of the very nobles he'd sought to destroy. The Union had celebrated his capture. The Union hoped he would be dead within the week.

Tesamu picked himself up, brushing his cold tears off the precious pages. The Union was powerful, but with this trove of information, Tesamu would be more powerful than they could ever be. He had all the Professor's experiments and powers right at his fingertips. And he was going to use it to become like him. He'll save as many lives as he can by ridding the world of nobles.

 _Use it wisely, and let your good sense guide you._

So long as the Professor was still alive, he could be saved. He had to save the Professor.

* * *

Notes

The languages I google-translated in order - French, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, German, Latin.

So it turns out, I put "Tesamu" into google translate and it said that it was from Estonia. So now Tesamu is pre-medieval Estonian (from the Baltic region of Northern Europe). I get that there's no possible way there was a random waterfall where the co ordinates are, but shhhhhh. Shhh. I wrote it before I figured out where it should be because I wanted one and I'm not changing.

There's going to be a a bit of a hiatus until mid-to-late-January. Thank you for all your support and kind words. You guys have no idea how much it helped me get through things. Merry Christmas! :D

\- nobody yet - Yeeaah Franken's back! I'm thinking of that quote someone said, that most villains, 'think they are the hero.'

\- general zargon - Thanks! He's totally a hypocrite. He honestly thinks he's fighting the good fight, but why? Are you still with the Union? Tesamu?

\- Elims - I hope it was a good cry! Enjoy

\- Guest - There's actually more to Tesamu than what's given even in this chapter XD But it'll all be revealed in due time. Remember, Rai's on the way to get revenge ;D

\- manjakvendi - I already said yes but I literally can't wait!

Happy Holidays everybody~

\- earl


	29. Student-Teacher Interviews

Bought to you after 20,000 minute alterations.

* * *

 _Near the end:_

The steps of the pagoda were wooden, an age old and stripped of the red paint that had slowly disappeared after generations of weathering. He walked up the stairwell, body grazing the left-most side to guide him. Wound around the stairwell was the statue of the buddha, cut in stripes of shining bronze and shadowed brown as he ascended level by level. His eyes stayed fixed on the statue. It seemed grand and run-down to him at the same time and that intrigued him. Hundreds of people would come here every day and hundreds more would continue after he'd left. But he was the only one of them who could climb the steps to the see the head. The steps creaked and groaned in his wake, echoing around the buddha. When he reached the top, the scent of incense swam around his senses. It was overbearingly strong.

Tesamu peered around the place, circling the buddha's head. "Sir?"

"You've taken your time, Tesamu."

Two figures were standing near the only open window on the top level of the tower. Another shifted in a wooden seat with a hand gestured in the air. "Come here."

"Yes."

Tesamu strode along the floorboards, every creak and grate a dozen times louder in this room.

"What took you so long?" the man asked.

"I had to take precautions," Tesamu explained. "It's dangerous to be so close to the traitor. He's too sharp. He'll notice." Tesamu slid a woven pack off his back, bringing it before him. "I've acquired all that I could."

"Good, good." The man flipped over the documents handed to him. "That's it?"

"Yes."

Silence hung between them. It alerted the two guards to their conversation. Tesamu felt eyes on him. The guards, the man, the statue.

"Alright," the man said, neatly piling the information on his knees. He gestured a hand to the other men and nodded encouragingly to Tesamu. "They'll escort you back to our current set up. And then you'll board a ship to go back to our central base. From there — we'll decide how it goes from there, right?"

"What will happen to the traitor?" Tesamu asked a beat too fast and too urgently. Far too demanding for the meagre position he was in. He didn't break his gaze with the amused-looking man.

"You've been the most important asset to us, you know. You've done immeasurable things. No one else is more deserving to know than you." The Union man beamed at him, smarmy smile replaced with something pointed and sinister, and yet he was more joyous than Tesamu had ever seen him. "It's all over tonight," he stated, yawn rising in his throat. He covered his mouth, rolling his shoulders before continuing. "We have enough men to storm the hideout. The traitor dies tonight."

Tesamu continued to stand still between the two guards that had moved behind his either side. Their eyes were fixed on Tesamu's back, the buddha watching all.

"Anything else, Tesamu?"

"I think you should reconsider, Sir," Tesamu said, a statement, but also a disguise of a challenge underneath the off-hand tone.

"Explain."

"There is more to be learnt from him."

"You've done more than enough."

"It's not enough," Tesamu said, and he took a trying step forward. "The Professor has proved to be more useful for the Union's long term interests. It's not just his human modification skills we should be after, but also his research on mutants and nobles. If we can—"

"The Professor?" the man echoed.

Tesamu stopped.

"Tesamu _-dear?"_

He kept his face neutral.

"The traitor," he said, but didn't shrug at his slip of the tongue. Tesamu subsided. "Sir, purely from a technical standpoint, we can gain so much more with Frankenstein alive."

The man sighed in his seat. The light from the window had shifted, and now a stray ray had floated to touch the corner of the bronze buddha's eye. A patch of bronze beamed between them. Tesamu resisted wandering his sight away to the statue. He waited in trial for the verdict.

"The information you've been giving us isn't useful anymore, Tesamu-dear," the man started. He looked at him, a show of disappointment in his face. "You've given us enough, already — the human soul weapon program has already begun."

Tesamu unfurled the fist at his side, relaxing himself. "I can do more."

"Are you sure?"

"I've learnt his codes."

The man's smile wiped off his face. "Why didn't you just say so?"

"There's more to learn. He has four primary codes hiding human modification information that are interspersed throughout the things I've given you. He has two more for research on nobles. Just let me continue and I can get them all."

The man tapped two fingers on the sides of the chair. "How much time?"

"As much as possible."

The man closed his eyes, shifted his head, and opened them to skim eyes with the buddha.

"You're our most loyal and prized agent, Tesamu-dear." Tesamu didn't answer. "I expect speedier reports. Every week. For as long as you can operate. And then we can proceed as planned. This is the end, Tesamu. You've done well."

Tesamu stepped back and bowed. "Yes, Sir."

* * *

Student-Teacher Interviews

 _Tock—toc, toc, toc._

The door buzzed open, a sound that Frankenstein had been waiting for for a long time. He instantly tensed up, each inner working dropping a degree before picking up pace twice as hard and thrice as fast. Yet he didn't make any indication of noticing the new presence. He set his eyes to the ceiling, head reclined on an arm.

"How…are you feeling?" Tesamu asked, tentative and stammering.

"Old," Frankenstein replied curtly.

"Pardon?"

"I'm feeling old, Tesamu. You grew up far too long ago."

"Why, yes."

Tesamu unclenched the nervous fists at his side before a hand floated up to tug at his mask. But when Tesamu remembered there was none, he felt all of a sudden very defensive. Like the last line of his shields had being forcibly stripped back — although he had decided to see him face to face.

"Look, Professor—"

 _"Kuh!"_

Frankenstein's burst of a laugh made Tesamu flinch. Frankenstein whacked a hand over his face, covering his eyes but not his grin.

 _"Don't_ call me that."

The words smeared from his mouth, dropping an octave until it was low and mocking like that night at the school. Only this time, that tone wasn't meant for Faust. It was meant loud and clear for Tesamu and he felt it chip a little part of his cold facade.

 _Tesamu, you can't call me that. It's enough to warrant your death._

"I'm _not —_ your _Professor_ ," Frankenstein sneered through his smirk.

Tesamu faltered a little, looking remote. The stupid hope he held onto disintegrated right before his eyes.

"…Frankenstein…that night at the school. You honestly didn't recognise me?"

He'd simply walked into the school without even wearing the mask. It was hardly a disguise. Perhaps it wasn't one at all. Tesamu's first meeting with the Professor after so many centuries was daunting. It was a fanciful, childish thing to hope for, but when he entered that office and later flared his light — he'd never seen the Professor's expression twist in such pungent disgust directed towards him. It was something to be expected, an obvious thing too obvious to account for; he knew it and yet he hadn't come prepared for it at all. The Professor had _hated_ him.

Frankenstein's smirk thinned. He brushed his hair out of his face, some of it falling over the side of the slab. His sight didn't leave the ceiling. Tesamu took a step closer, positioning himself squarely between the area of two bars even if the Professor wouldn't look.

Tesamu spoke. "I was disappointed, you know. Not really at you, but simply…disappointed. It hurt, you know. That you didn't recognise my face."

Silence pervaded over them, a quashing and oppressive blankness that Tesamu feared to break, for the moment. Tesamu's eyes trailed along the ripped line of drips, pain killers and monitoring equipment left dangling from the machine at Frankenstein's side. Perhaps the silence grew too uncomfortable as Tesamu looked away. But Frankenstein shuffled, taking a long breath of air as he sat up. He pushed himself off the makeshift bed, wavering ever so slightly as he hobbled to the bars. Tesamu blanched when he seemed to buckle before quickly recovering, but didn't comment on it. Frankenstein closed his left hand around a bar and reached out with his right. Tesamu braced. He'd resigned himself not to recoil, whatever Frankenstein did _._

He reached past the bar to touch his cheek.

None of the power Tesamu knew he was capable of was present. He briefly wondered whether Frankenstein was still capable of levelling cities with that hand. Tesamu finally looked him in the eyes, trying to figure out how this was supposed to go. Frankenstein was just staring. Something nipped and pecked beneath his mind, and something else bloomed from his chest, catching up his throat. Frankenstein was looking at him with a completely unguarded look. Just quietly and blatantly watching him. There was nothing hostile about it. Like Frankenstein was trying to make up for many unspeakable years of never seeing this particular face grow and learn and change, robbing him of what he should have been. A proud man. With a proud apprentice.

* * *

Frankenstein unreservedly drank in the sight of this older Tesamu. The spark that used to light up his eyes was long neglected, forgotten about, even, and his aura felt too familiar. Tesamu was no more youthful than he was now. He tried to look for his boy, but even his shadow was so shrouded by the time-weathered, hardened man before him. His boy had grown old, and grown disillusioned.

His boy was jaded and Frankenstein didn't know what emotion to give way to first — to foil over with and pretend it didn't exist or just let the cascade of everything wash over him to contend with themselves. Every change showed in his face, every quip and quirk undeniably, irrevocably Tesamu's, but not ever like it was before. Frankenstein's lips tightened and softened, his eyes blinked and shuttered, his breathing hitched and caught and Frankenstein thought — if he cut himself in half, he could show Tesamu the blood pumping fast in his veins, the irregular shots of his nerves. He could map out everything that was wrong with him right now, down to the wider dilation in his pupils like another anatomy lesson dissecting yet another deadened body — still in a bunker deep down in the earth.

Frankenstein's hand moved over Tesamu's face, brushing the dark ring under his eye. "...Dark Spear…"

Tesamu pulled away. Frankenstein's hand hovered for a moment. He clutched onto another bar. "Does it hurt?"

Tesamu's fringe shadowed one tired, amber eye.

"Are they loud?"

Tesamu dropped his guard a sliver, letting Frankenstein see the cracks in him. Dark Spear was spreading and chiselling away more and more of him all the time. He had no way to make them quiet, didn't know how to keep them at bay. Frankenstein's expression was downcast as he smiled. "You're hearing them right now, aren't you?"

"…How could you have…lived with this, for so _long?"_

Frankenstein straightened up, hauling his weight to stop leaning over the bars. He held on with one hand, making a conscious effort to steady his body and voice. "You must be strong, Tesamu. They won't hesitate for even a second; they'll try to take you over and if they ever steal away your control, they _will not_ give it back."

Tesamu grit his teeth hard, making a painful wince flash over his demeanour.

"Strong enough to give them back to me," Frankenstein added, and the look in Tesamu's eyes changed again. Something settled in his lungs, and Tesamu's voice came out rickety.

"You know that's not going to happen."

"You're going to make it happen, Tesamu," Frankenstein continued. "I've been out for at least a month, haven't I? Have you had any sort of rest in that time?"

"Don't worry about me, Professor."

Frankenstein didn't reply.

 _Faust, Tesamu:_ they were the same person, yet he looked at him like that he might still be that little stray boy he saved from under the claws of mutants. He used to dream so long and scream so hard that he was almost worried that that boy would rush out into the lab from right behind this changed man. And he could do nothing as he waited for the inevitable, wondered how the kid would die again. But he never died. He was never hung, or burnt; or was trampled or thrown off a cliff or beheaded or boiled or flogged or anything. He was alive for all those years, carrying out all the experiments he did in his youth to garner that golden aura. A golden aura that would never be again. Seeing Tesamu, seeing Dark Spear curl possessively around another, was like looking into a mirror.

"So you found my library," Frankenstein said, unsure what he was trying to do or say. He'd spent the entire time thinking about it but when the moment came, he was still completely unprepared.

"Forty six point two, zero, zero, zero degrees north, six point one, five, zero, zero degrees east," Tesamu recited. "I should tell you that it's gone now. I had to destroy it to cover my tracks."

"Good."

"It's terribly sentimental, you know."

Frankenstein frowned as he shot Tesamu a look.

"You always scolded me for picking sentimental things. Said I should always remain random, baseless."

Frankenstein sighed and answered. "Because, if you don't remember, we were on the run. The branches of the Union stretched so far I took you and ran to hide in Korea. Well, one of us needed to hide." Frankenstein immediately regretted saying that. Tesamu's aura grew flat, simmering out. He felt nothing from him.

"Old Burgundy. Today, it's Geneva, Switzerland. Your homeland."

"It's been a long time since it could be called my homeland. I don't even know what it looks like, today. Besides, I was born in—"

"Nowadays Italy," Tesamu finished. He smiled wryly at his slight confusion. "I was your confidante. You confided in me for everything. I know you've always considered yourself a son of the Kingdom of Burgundy, Geneva, rather than there. A son of the Franks from which you were named."

Frankenstein's mouth parted, and he withdrew from the bars. "You're the reason Mary Shelley's book exists."

"So you did wonder why that book had its accuracies."

Frankenstein's face drooped, a trace of shock, of disappointment, of sadness touching upon it for only a moment before acceptance became the only thing discernible.

Tesamu lifted his shoulders slightly. "Are you angry with it?"

"I was surprised the Union knew even that much about me. I thought I had slipped somewhere along the line. Apparently not."

"But are you angry?"

"No." Frankenstein's eyes narrowed into saddened sapphires. "How could I…be angry with that fantasy," he waned, dressing up his voice in a high, masquerading whisper, but still sounding grim. Frankenstein ripped his head to the floor before lazily looking up again. "I'm not angry. What right do I have the right to be angry about that book, when the horrors in it can't even begin to match up to reality."

Tesamu just stood there, wide-eyed and staring, brows scrunching in a faint wince that might have told he was taken aback. "It doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter now. I have all your powers. Let me carry your burdens, Professor. You're free."

Those words glinted in his glassy eyes, spilling strange, viscid emotions off of his body, through the bars. The tension was almost tangible. Frankenstein muttered under a veil of hair, not reaching Tesamu's eyes.

"Where is Master?"

Tesamu frowned. "…You don't need to worry about him anymore."

"What happened afterwards, Tesamu? What happened to Master?"

"Why would you ask me? How should I know? I don't car—"

"He knew exactly what had happened, Tesamu. He saw it all. He'd have found you. What did he do?"

"…Why do you call him that? That noble—"

"Where is _my Master."_

Tesamu took a step back. "He's missing. The Union has all their ears out. I have all my personal ears out. But there's nothing. The Noblesse has dropped off the face of this earth," Tesamu said flatly. "Even those subordinates of yours are still looking."

"…What did you tell him?"

"Pardon?"

"What did you say to him, for you to still be alive?" Frankenstein said, and leaned in close.

Tesamu looked away, a look of deep consternation crossing his face. He picked his words with care, but the truth of it impaled Frankenstein over and over. "I won't lie to you. I won't ever lie to you again, Professor. You're the only one I won't ever do that to." His voice was desolate. "I let him think you're dead. He believed me, because I have Dark Spear."

* * *

That was what this was all about. The realisation doused him like water over a fire, things that became clear and crisp though he didn't want it to be. He couldn't fathom it all, stomach it all right now, and the world began to sway and spin as Frankenstein scoffed, lips twisting from smirk to frown to a sharp inhale of breath before it burst out, unable to be held in. He remembered how dirty he felt.

Suddenly, it became all too much to bear, the filth and grime and unclean things that speckled over his body like scar-tissue that couldn't, wouldn't, _shouldn't_ heal and Frankenstein winced his head into his hands. He remembered the low, incessant rhythm of the throb in his skull, and made a face, sighed into his palm. He forgot to mask a single, human thing, all unguarded emotions on broadcast to the pair of hesitant eyes watching through the cell.

"Frankenstein?!"

He didn't know which thought to balk at first: that Cadis Etrama di Raizel thought he was dead, or that Tesamu had done this all because he didn't want to _lie to him again_. Because Tesamu felt guilty for betraying him when he was a boy.

"Professor—?!"

"— _Why do you have to call me that?!"_

Tesamu faltered. His brow crinkled, his lips drooped, his entire face fell into something between sobs, though he made no sound. "Nothing's changed," he murmured, "I've learnt so much from you, Professor Frankenstein." The familiarity mocked him, though it wasn't meant to. "What are you, if not a teacher to me?"

Frankenstein scoffed. "It's true — I taught you to be ruthless. But I — _for the life of me_ — did not teach you to be cruel!" Frankenstein sucked in air, flinching a hand to clasp over his eyes until all there was was a grin again. The grin contorted into a grimace. "I…never blamed you, Tesamu."

Tesamu blinked his eyes shut. "I know you didn't. But I didn't deserve that."

"You were never to blame. _Tesamu,_ " Frankenstein started, edging forward a little before trailing to a stop. "You were _just a child_ …you can't hold yourself responsible for what happened…the Union used you. You're a fool if you don't think they're still using you!"

"Yes," Tesamu answered, straightening up. His stoic voice was at odds at the depth of concern in his eyes. "That may be. You called me a genius, and maybe I was, maybe I wasn't, but I want you to know that I knew exactly what the hell I was doing back then. But none of that matters! All that matters is that even after I learned the truth, about nobles, about the Union, about you…I still betrayed you, Professor."

Frankenstein shook his head slowly. "When you started to understand, you kept feeding away my research because you needed me to keep being useful to them. Against all odds, you, _y-_ " Frankenstein paused. "You were trying to protect me. I know you had no choice. _I know,_ Tesamu."

Tesamu's mouth creased, taken aback by that. "I said that didn't matter. I betrayed you," he admitted out loud. He looked down, ashamed, too toiled to mull over the words in his mouth. He shed them like a burden finally unlatching off his back. "Then I forced you into deeper hiding." He abruptly huffed into the air, letting go of trying to hold his head high. "I forced you into some desperate suicide mission into enemy territory, one in which you'd already decided that you'd never come back from. I made you throw away _everything!"_ he breathed, his voice breaking.

Tesamu looked at him bitterly. "You were going to die there, but you didn't. My betrayal drove you to waste away your life. All these years up until right this second." His voice was a mere whisper now. "You put yourself beneath a noble because of me."

"Don't be so dense, Tesamu," Frankenstein huffed, "You think anybody can make me do I thing I don't want to do? I do what I do willingly."

"You served him _wrongfully,_ " Tesamu snapped. "The Professor I knew—"

"—The Professor you knew was over one thousand years younger and a safety hazard to himself!" Frankenstein sighed. He forcefully pulled himself away, turning his back on Tesamu. "It's not what you think," he said, staring at the cell wall. "He's…he's, Cadis Etrama di Raizel is important to me, more than anything. I was wrong, Tesamu. Nobles were not the root problem of mutant plagues…or tyranny. It was noble defectors."

Frankenstein looked through the bars. "The same people whom you work with in the Union. Don't you see? The Noblesse wanted everything that I wanted. "

Tesamu's expression tightened.

"It was my idea how I address him. It was my will to become his servant. I want this, Tesamu. I still do."

"No, you don't," he sneered, and Tesamu's voice grated. "You don't understand, Professor. You don't—"

"Then tell me what I don't understand!" Frankenstein demanded.

Tesamu stopped. He looked to the ceiling, and then to the floor. "You spent every waking moment working towards your goal. Before, everything you did was for the betterment of humanity. And the moment you stepped inside that mansion, you threw it all away." He swallowed down. "You became lost."

Frankenstein closed his eyes, nodding as he thought it over. "It makes no sense when thinking back on it, now," he remarked. "A suicide mission to prove that humans were not weak. Heh," he chuckled. "Yes, meeting the Noblesse changed me. But let me tell you, Tesamu, I did not abandon my duty." Frankenstein took a breath. "Things weren't as black and white as I'd liked them to be. The nobles didn't _unleash a plague upon humanity_. As I said — it was a corrupt, select few."

Tesamu wandered backwards, shaking his head. "Then how—"

"—How could a few simple nobles alter the balance of everything? How were they not immediately put to death?" Frankenstein continued. "Because they were Clan Leaders," he said coldly. "The strongest, most influential of noblekind were in cahoots with the Union. Thirteen noble clans. Six traitor Clan Leaders. You should know this already, given your position. I survived, and I stayed by the Noblesse because it gave me a chance to find out who they were, and how to take them down."

Tesamu scoffed, chuckling under his breath. "Of course I know. Of course." He straightened again, looking Frankenstein in the eye. "But look. Look at the damage they caused. Look at what they've done to us!" he yelled.

Countless experiments created Frankenstein's body, ripped it apart until it didn't anymore. There was only a need for power when he realised he was powerless. Dark Spear ran through Tesamu now, a reminder of their mistakes. Human, but not really. "The nobles are unforgivable, Frankenstein. The Union is unforgivable. And that Cadis Etrama di Raizel — he took you, he failed to stop them, he failed to stop all of this, and he's still nowhere to be seen."

Frankenstein shook his head slowly, but Tesamu kept going. "Maybe I can't forgive him for taking you away." Tesamu swallowed. "For turning you into _this._ "

"For gods sake! Think with your head, Teasamu!" Frankenstein cried, livid. "You're not trying to think rationally. You're not trying to see what's right in—"

"Truth be told," Tesamu said, talking over him, "Cadis Etrama di Raizel, I don't care about him in the slightest. I don't care about the Union. I don't really care about any of those fools. But I know you won't separate yourself from that noble, so I've done it for you." Tesamu smiled sadly. "You'll understand that you don't need him when he's gone. For good."

"I waited eight—"

"—hundred years. Yes. I know."

Something sparked behind his eyes, and the blacks and whites shifted around Frankenstein's sight. Tesamu's aura seemed darker than ever; Dark Spear seemed darker than ever. "I'm sorry I failed you, Professor."

"In which way?" Frankenstein asked shortly.

"Why do you think there were so little leads on the Noblesse?"

His eyes widened. A last something shattered within Frankenstein.

"I happened to come across you a couple times because I was looking for him too. If I had found him first and finished him, then you, Professor Frankenstein, would have moved on and went back to doing what you did before. You could have felt him die and that would've been the end of it."

Frankenstein clutched his fingers over the wall, trying to get ahold of anything before he clawed at his unhealed body. "No, _Tesamu…"_

"But I didn't find him in time. I guess you win, Professor." He watched him from the corner of his eye, disdain dripping from his voice. "You found him first."

Frankenstein crushed his knuckles against the wall. The faint smell of blood pervaded the air. "How — dare you. How dare you, Tesamu. How DARE YOU!" Frankenstein slammed both fists into the reinforced wall, back turned on the other man, cringing at it, doing no damage at all.

"It didn't make a difference. I couldn't finish the job the Union failed to do. _He_ came back here, waltzing back into your life and—"

"I don't want this! I don't want any of this! You're just like me back then, just like me — you're wrong, Tesamu, you are so _wrong_ about him…Let me go."

"I don't care how it really is with him. You can't be a slave. Whether you know it or not, he's ruined everything you were." Tesamu lifted his head, baring his neck. "Once I kill Cadis Etrama di Raizel, I'll let you—"

"YOU WANT TO FREE ME? THEN FREE ME NOW, TESAMU!"

"WHEN HE'S DEAD!"

They both silenced, tips of their voices still reverberating around the room. It lingered in the air between them, sickly and choking. The knife-points of their words pierced them both in the same places.

"Don't do this, Tesamu."

"I have to."

"I'll stay here."

"…What?"

"I'll stay here with you if you leave Mas—"

"No."

Frankenstein looked like he couldn't fathom that this was really happening. He looked up again, but when Tesamu moved to meet his dulled eyes again, he was looking past him.

"Dark Spear?"

Tesamu frowned and relaxed, frowned and then cringed.

Frankenstein swallowed, feeling his own insides react to the flicker of purple behind his ex-apprentice. "I thought this was between us. Dark Spear," he said, "Do you have to spite me like this?! You're so pathetic you didn't even eat me when I served myself on a silver platter."

Tesamu wasn't sure what to do. The Professor really was going to speak to ghosts.

"All these years and what? I'm not good enough for you?!" Frankenstein scoffed, a sob wedged in-between. "I've never asked anything of you, have I? Apart from shutting up. Let's be fair, you demand _so_ much more of me."

Tesamu felt their voices chatter up in dingy whispers. It took everything not to try and turn around. There was nothing behind him.

"Dark Spear, don't do this."

Something coiled alive within Tesamu, squirming between his muscles and reaching for his consciousness. Boggy hands struggled to get a grip, a globular darkness rising like a crest. Tesamu shook under the strain and broke away from Frankenstein. It was his mistake, but he couldn't turn back to the Professor now. He strode away from the cell.

"Please don't touch Master."

"He's not your Master anymore," Tesamu said, leaving. "He's master of nothing…Goodbye, Professor."

The door whirred shut.

A blast of malty aura forced over the confines of the cell, cracking the wall up to the ceiling and crumbling the tiles over the floor. Frankenstein didn't want to give Dark Spear the satisfaction of his scream. He held it in. Beads of sweat collected on his brow until it couldn't retain it, rolling down his face.

"Master…what have I done?" he mouthed, barely audible, "what have I…done?" Frankenstein reached deep inside of him, but the second he did, he regretted it like hell, like the pang of a punch to his gut. He coughed, a wet hack. He was quickly reminded of the emptiness the moment he fled to the flayed ends of his mind. He was just talking to himself. There was nothing to dilute the adrenaline, no bond to curl up next to or touch with his fingers; when he slowed down to listen to the staccato thump, thump, thump of his heart — there was no one else's thumping with him.

Frankenstein wanted to hate his apprentice so, so much.

He wanted to hate Tesamu.

He wished he could hate Tesamu.

But when he closed his eyes, when he blanked his mind, all he could see was that memory of that little, beaming boy, holding out scrolls and vials to him with the greatest grin. When everything was said and done on that barren battlefield on Lukedonia, Frankenstein lost control because he thought Tesamu was gone. Raizel saved his life because he thought Tesamu was dead. He was surprised when the Previous Lord asked him — _why did you stay with Cadis Etrama di Raizel for 10 years?_ — because he didn't think he could ever love someone else like he loved Tesamu.

* * *

 **8th century**

 **Gregorian Calendar DCCXCV**

 **Year 795**

"Frankenstein?"

"Hm?" Frankenstein hummed, turning back to glance at him while wearing three lenses that, quite honestly, made him look like he had chameleon lizard eyes.

 _"Ppft!"_

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing. You look dashing, Frankenstein."

Frankenstein wheeled away from the specimen he was looking at. "Oh I see what this is about," he announced, leaning his hands on his knees. "You're jealous of my three-tiered lenses."

Tesamu blinked, pointing at the lenses and then at himself, and then back at the lenses sardonically. "I...certainly am...not," he implored as respectfully as he could manage, still gesturing how put off he was by that comment.

Frankenstein smiled, but Tesamu couldn't really tell what his expression was under that chunky, cone-like thing. Frankenstein raised a hand and flicked up a lens, making it jut out into the air sideways as a magnified blue eye winked at Tesamu. Tesamu scoffed, holding in a laugh.

"You want to try it on?"

"I most certainly do not."

"Try it on."

"No."

"Fine, then."

"No, let me!"

Tesamu tottered over and leaned down as Frankenstein looped the chain off the lenses. He fixed it onto Tesamu as he bobbed impatiently.

"It's heavy."

"Of course, it's made of iron and glass," Frankenstein explained.

Tesamu knocked Frankenstein's hands away as he hurried to tighten the lenses himself. Then Frankenstein sat back, a finger on his mouth as he admired his handiwork. "It's...it looks...ravishing," Frankenstein said slowly.

Tesamu chuckled and turned to the mirror. The oversized lenses barely balanced on his face. "I can't see anything," Tesamu said, nodding his head knowingly.

"Turn the notch on the side...The other side."

Two magnified amber eyes blinked alert as Tesamu's mouth dropped open. He slowly circled the room, eyeing mundane things with lightning interest. "How'd you make it grow bigger? Make it appear that the scale has changed?" Tesamu felt around for a pen, bringing it before his eyes and looking baffled. "Even though the object hasn't changed a bit?"

Frankenstein folded his arms, taking a break and watching Tesamu watch things. "Hmm. You know that light travels in straight lines." Frankenstein drew an imaginary line in the air and Tesamu agreed. " _Erm,_ when light bounces off an object, it also travels parallel to each other. But, when they pass through a convex lens, one in which you are wearing right now, for example, the lens bends those parallel rays. This converges them together and creates an image on the retina of your eyes."

"And makes it appear bigger."

"Makes it appear even bigger if you do this," Frankenstein said, tipping the first lens back to further magnify the effect.

Tesamu gasped. Frankenstein huffed a breath onto the lens, rubbing it to get rid of finger prints. Tesamu looked back in the mirror and frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"...I...look the opposite of ravishing."

 _"Ahaa — ehem,"_ Frankenstein cleared his throat. "I should incorporate aesthetic into the design next time, shouldn't I?" Frankenstein covered his mouth as Tesamu wore the ridiculous looking thing around. "Keep it."

Tesamu stopped dead in his track. "Don't you need it?"

"I'll get that back once I make a better one for you." Frankenstein went back to his desk. "Can't have you accidentally running into walls because your depth perception is skewed," he joked.

Tesamu whirled around, and, with great confidence, pointed his finger at him. "You underestimate me, Frankenstein!" The lenses slid halfway down his face.

Frankenstein jumped out of his seat and knelt before him to fix it. "Oh. You'd think I'd have learnt the first time, don't you?" He sighed. Frankenstein narrowed his eyes seriously. "You've got to keep me in check." He patted him in the arm.

"Heh! Thanks Professor," Tesamu said as he ran down the hall. The sound of heavy lens clinking on the end of a nose got fainter as he went down the corridor.

Frankenstein remained on the floor, jaw clenched and staring.

 _"…Professor?"_

* * *

Notes.

Kingdom of Burgundy was a collection of states that was comprised of parts of nowadays France, Switzerland and Italy. It was ruled by the Franks from 534 - 933 during the Frankish Merovingian dynasty. (All of this from wikipedia though.) Which sounds very relevant, considering that, in the online etymology dictionary, the name 'Frankenstein' is literally 'Franconian mountain' and/or 'free stone.' Also see: 'Franken' as a prefix to mean "non-natural." (Though I wouldn't say Franken's strictly from 'Switzerland, Italy, France,' etc etc, as this was eons before these countries were born. Just an interpretation.)

So Franken, freshly betrayed by Tesamu, hapless, and cornered, ran to Lukedonia as both the Union and central order nobles closed in. At this point, two certain Clan Leaders were also after him on orders from up high. After the base was desecrated and he had nothing, he decided to put all his energy into one last effort: to fight them nobles. He went to Lukedonia, all grand gestures and flamboyant words, to demonstrate to the nobles that humans were not weak and probably meet his end in the process. Maybe he thought that was how he could best do good in a world that was out to get him. Maybe he had a sliver of a hope that his young apprentice could continue his work, if he wanted to. In a chance twist, he happened upon a mansion in the woods...

And there was a reason Faust was randomly shadowing Franken in that crowd and the church hahaha. He was searching for Rai too, surprise!

I refuse to believe Franken just sat around making tea all day with Rai. Like, of course he was making plenty of tea and cookies and being sickeningly domestic and happy for once, but in his spare time he was still plotting the downfall of his enemies and determining who needed to die terrible deaths. In 'Premeditated Murder' which is kind of separate from this but still, he was hunting down the scientists that made Dark Spear. And, how could I forget, his playdates with Ragar. And old man bickering with Gejutel. (Sitcom of 'life in Lukedonia, please.)

Anyways, sorry for holding onto this one for so long, and enjoy!

\- earl


	30. Father's Little Brat

_You can blast my other passions, but revenge remains — revenge, henceforth dearer than light of food! I may die, but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery._

\- Chapter 20, Shelley's Frankenstein

* * *

Dark Spear had a choice to make. After a millennia, they finally had their master the way they wanted him. They were on the way to taking him to hell with a smile on their many-a-dozen faces. After one last hurrah: a good bout of killing, a pretty dash of carnage, Frankenstein would die.

And this was where they'd met _him_ again. Their crossroads demon was human. Faust offered his power, sun-streaked aura that glowed too harsh, and it tasted as sweet as Frankenstein when he offered his hand at the very start. They didn't spend forever constructing his nightmares for nothing. Dark Spear understood who Faust was in an instant. Frankenstein didn't.

Dark Spear had won, but which prize should they take?

Frankenstein's life, which they had spent their undead eternity waiting for, _or,_ Frankenstein's world, which they had spent their inconsequential infinity cursing at. It drove them furious. _What a vexing question. What a conundrum._ Should they kill Frankenstein, or do what they always tried to do, but could never quite manage?

Break him.

They loved Frankenstein, and oh, they loved to hate him. They loved to hurt him.

 ** _The boy._**

Dark Spear bit its million tongues, cringed it's million fragments of faces. Dark Spear felt like a naughty child, choosing the latter. Like playing a game of _'he loves me, he loves me not...'_ picking off pieces of Frankenstein like petals. Acting like a child that had reached the end of the flower, and had deliberately messed up the counting in order to get the desired result. _He loves us._ Even if it meant for the snake to be forced from its skin, and Dark Spear wouldn't even be able to feel Frankenstein's most painful moments, they still chose the latter.

 ** _Faust is the boy._**

Dark Spear would spare Frankenstein's life, if it meant being able to hurt him beyond hell.

Dark Spear would kill Cadis Etrama di Raizel.

So they rattled against their cage, wrangled Frankenstein into the ground. They wrestled and won back control like sweeping a rug from under his feet; but when he fell, he fell into oblivion. This was a wager of many lifetimes. Dark Spear made their choice.

* * *

Father's Little Brat

"What is this about, Ignes?"

She put on a smile, cocked her head to the side and chuckled while politely covering her mouth. Ignes shrugged off her lab coat and turned to Tesamu. There was nothing warm about her greeting, from the ruffled coat left on the floor to her tight-lipped smile. There was something sinister and off about the way her sight never left him as she approached from the far side, dark hair falling to frame her face.

"You promised me, Elder-nim. About the soul-weapon?" Ignes raised a brow in content.

Tesamu smiled back. "Ignes dear, of course I haven't forgotten. That was our agreement," he said, voice laden with sugar. "But the circumstances have changed now, haven't they? You already have a soul weapon. Have you tried summoning it?"

With a wave of her hand, a current blew back their hair and the bullwhip conjured between Ignes's perfectly manicured fingers. "Cetus. It's pretty, isn't it?"

"Utterly exquisite."

Ignes flicked it, demonstrating its power. A loud crack rang through the air. It tangled around her arm where she bought it up to inspect it. "I like Cetus, but it's a pity it remains on the same level as when my father held it. It should have been stronger, better, but that human had my father…" she trailed off, a pained look that Tesamu didn't think was feigned crossing over her face. "My father's soul was consumed, Zeroth Elder."

"My greatest condolences." Tesamu looked totally unbothered. "Roctis's loss is a grief to us all. But nonetheless, your soul weapon is complete, Ignes dear." Ignes hadn't moved, her eyes still fixed on the weapon. She looked much like Roctis. Though looks was about the only thing they shared. "You've never been stronger in your life."

"I know," she whispered. Dimples sunk into her face. "But I still want you to honour your promise, Zeroth Elder. My father's death doesn't annul that. I'm not all that concerned with the Noblesse, contrary to the rest of these nobles," she said flippantly. "I'll keep helping you destroy him if it pleases you, but you agreed to make me a soul weapon. And I want our experiments on Dark Spear to begin immediately." Ignes tottered forward, black hair falling over her face. As every pleasantry voided right then and there, the polite front she'd kept up from seconds ago was startlingly apparent. The contrast was palpable, but Tesamu had expected this. Ignes Kravei brushed back her hair as she advanced, Cetus alive and buzzing in her grip.

"Now that I have a soul weapon, it makes me want to have it more. I want Dark Spear, Zeroth." Ignes was smiling again. Pressure pressed around her as she stopped before Tesamu. There was half a metre left between them. She leaned in close.

"And I don't care how you do it — _we can play a dart game over our brainstorm!_ We can bet where it lands: infuse Dark Spear into Cetus, separate it into multiple weapons, dissect it and find out how it's made… _or_ we could start anew _,_ get more raw materials and make an original, _improved…"_

Tesamu nodded, but he rolled his eyes and didn't stop himself from doing it.

Ignes's expression soured. It was as if her aura had shut off like a light switch. "I went along with all your vanity projects to make myself a Dark Spear, and now you're going to deliver," Ignes explained, her words cold, stark facts. _"Right now."_

Cetus began to glow, projecting shadows over Ignes's face in a pulsing, red warning.

"Alright, Zeroth Elder? Tesamu? Can I call you that? _Tesamu-dear?"_

"Ignes, you spineless, scheming bitch."

Ignes's smirk wiped off her face like fast wind slowing into thin air. Tesamu stopped and sighed, his expression unapologetic. Anger mounted upon Ignes's aura, Cetus unravelling from her hand and sprawling over the floor unbidden.

"Tesamu. You're going to give me what I want," she started, "You—"

"I lied." Tesamu looked her in the eyes, blinking in an almost child-like and confused manner. But his voice belied the facade, his intention as sure as a bullet.

"Dear me, Ignes," Tesamu cooed, worried expression crinkling over his face and mismatched voice, "Did the big bag human not uphold his pinky promise?" He could feel Cetus heating up the space between them. "Let me make myself abundantly clear. Dark Spear was never going to _you._ Whatever knowledge I have on making one, I was never going to share with the likes of you." He huffed, taking a slow step back. "Keep dreaming, Ignes-dear, and count yourself _wildly_ lucky to be able to touch that thing in your hands right now. Because, fuck Roctis, you don't deserve _it_ and _it_ knows it."

 _"FAUST!"_ Ignes screeched, furious, whipping Cetus forward to strike him.

Tesamu moved, evading her attack and looking back with a bored expression. Ignes tensed, jerking Cetus to whip back to strike again. As it pulled back from the broken machines behind Tesamu, he caught it in one easy grab. Cetus snagged taut. Ignes gritted her teeth, shifting them into a mouth full of fangs. Cetus's glow reddened them both.

"That soul weapon is mine. Cetus is mine. _I don't deserve it?"_ Ignes sung, "Hah! Tesamu, you have no idea how what I had to go through, walking around this damned compound for hundreds of years, watching pricks like Urokai, Zarga, Gradeus and even Edian that bastard — flaunting around their soul weapons only to find out some _human,_ hiding out in hidey-holes, had one stronger than anything!" She wobbled back, head shaking sardonically as she held onto Cetus with one hand, not wanting to seem weak. She smoothed down the front of her shirt with the other. "And least of all, _you_. You don't get to own one, Tesamu, it's more than pathetic when you're—"

"—Hey now, Ignes," Tesamu cut in, "I get it. I understand tremendously. I'm human. Hell," he added. "That's racist."

Disgust squirmed in Ignes's gut, her fists dampening with anger. Ignes's lips curled upwards as she abruptly tugged to free Cetus. Tesamu didn't budge. It seemed as if they were deadlocked in a hilarious and ironic proposition of tug of war. Ignes scoffed, finally grabbing Cetus with two hands and heaving. Tesamu's brow furrowed, him doing the same. Ignes filnched as sparks flew from Tesamu, black and purple welling out of him like a sudden burst of a dam. They were just straining like that for a time. Ignes loosened her grip first to retaliate and pull back. In the lapse of her struggle, Tesamu wrenched Cetus forward, bashing Ignes in the face as she was pulled sharply towards him.

 _"Hah! Fau_ —Tesamu!"

Ignes didn't let go of Cetus, desperately holding on. Tesamu sidestepped Ignes before she recovered, hitting his forearm over her neck. Something cracked. Ignes buckled. For a short moment, she was falling for real, and then she shifted to put her full weight into the fall in order to keep holding onto Cetus. She was desperate to get the weapon out of Tesamu's hands; without her control of it, her chances of winning were _nil._

As if to drive home the point, Tesamu let one hand go, showing his power. Cetus wasn't a weapon to be used at close quarters, and Ignes had come waltzing in here knowing full well. It was just laughable. Black flames burst across the whip, going like a fuse to the hilt. Fire licked over Ignes's skin as she cried out, forced to let go. Tesamu kicked into her solar plexus, her body skidding back and bashing into a machine. Noble blood spotted over the floor.

Tesamu suppressed the urge to sigh once again. He calmly looked away, flicking Cetus to wrap around his wrist like Ignes had it do only a few moments before. Tesamu waved his hand up and down, experimentally weighing the soul weapon. "I wonder what the Kravei predecessors really think of you, Ignes. _Ah well, ah well."_ He dropped his hand to his side, eyeing Ignes on the floor with a cold, unbothered look.

Ignes coughed, a wet hack. "Give it back," she scowled. There was no power behind her words now, no sureness. "Give it _back,_ Faust!"

"Let me tell you what I think of you instead, huh?"

"UARGH!" Ignes clambered to her feet, her motions seemingly chunky and weighty as energy seethed from her, jumping like sea spray at sharp rocks.

Tesamu raised his chin. _"Spineless:_ because for hundreds of years, you followed the orders of a _human,_ willingly, sure — you might argue that our motives aligned or whatnot, but in the end, you didn't raise a hand against me because you knew I could swipe you down with my very _'human'_ powers. Now, Cetus happens to come along and now look?"

Ignes blanched, searching for something to say that scrambled in her mind. She hid her hesitation behind another scowl but Tesamu didn't care.

 _"Scheming:_ for all your behind-the-scenes of the behind-the-scenes-of-our-operations. Did you really think you could gain the upper hand in the Union by controlling the Zeroth? _Yeah-nah._ Scheming is a good quality, Ignes dear, an admirable quality, but that's another reason you could never touch me." Tesamu smiled sweetly. "I'm just cleverer than you."

Ignes looked like her veins would pop.

 _"And bitch:_ because the second you gain a smidgen of power, the second you get a morsel of an upgrade, you come raging into my lab, demanding I honour our little…pact. And throw away all that waiting and planning. Just pounce on me like a spoiled little brat." Tesamu said, bobbing his head. "It's so predictable it hurts. _God."_

Ignes swallowed, fists still balled, unable to take the insults but unsure what to do.

"And after all of this, you still can't do anything. What makes you think you can take me on when you could hardly scratch the Professor?" Tesamu added, an afterthought.

Cetus began to fade, hotly pricking Tesamu's skin as it slunk away from the material world. He looked to his side, studying the transparent frame of it before it disappeared completely. He smiled at that, more amused by this development that anything else that had just transpired.

"Leave Cetus alone for now," he said, and it sounded like it was for Cetus's sake rather than Ignes. "Turn around. Pick up your coat. Get out of my lab. We're done."

Ignes's eyes flashed. "What?"

"I said — _get out, Ignes._ "

Backing away and huffing, she eyed him dangerously. There was nothing else Ignes could do right now. Tesamu had seen this coming and stayed lounging in his lab anyway. His words gripped onto her back like claws, or perhaps, the marks they made, unable to be shook off so easily. Ignes headed to the door, looking back once with glinting eyes. "You still need me. _Don't think_ — don't think the First Elder will favour you forever. Good luck taking down the Noblesse alone."

"Hm, not exactly, Ignes." Tesamu had already turned away from her and he didn't bother to glance back. "Enter."

The door at the opposite end of the lab opened, revealing Lunark, Gradeus, and more mindless weapons.

"Zeroth, this better be worth my time. Are we doing it or not?" Gradeus piped up.

Ignes stared, blood smudged at one end of her mouth, smoke from smashed machines furling around her at the ruined end of the lab.

Tesamu spoke short and succinctly. "We're going after the Noblesse right now. Pack your bags. We're leaving."

Gradeus grinned. "Finally! Lagus gives you his damned support, now let's go."

Lunark nodded. "The Second Elder gives his blessings."

Ignes's mind flashed, filing away the sudden development.

"How incredibly kind you all are," Tesamu beamed. He found himself holding his mask on the way out, lagging behind the others as they walked on and he lingered in the doorway. Ignes watched from afar, locking eyes with him. Tesamu ignored her. He folded red over black, leaving the mask on a table. He left to kill the Noblesse saying nothing more.

Ignes backed out the lab, consumed by a ravenous hate.

* * *

Footsteps rushed across the terrain, wedging dents into the ground and upheaving dirt into the air. Trees rustled as ghosts passed. Lakes shuddered as titans ran. Muzaka tasted the air and frowned.

"I know."

"Huh?" Muzaka shot a look to his left, a brow shooting up.

"I know we are being followed," Raizel explained.

"Alright. Fight or fly? I'll swat them and catch up with you?"

"No," Raizel sighed.

"Hey, I promise I'll leave a breathing body. _What?_ I have self control!" With that, Muzaka dug his feet into the ground, dragging himself to a controlled stop. A shallow trench opened upon the grounds. He ambled over the place, footsteps thudding as he circled the area, predatory eyes tracing the distance. "Look, whoever it is, step out. We don't have all night."

A hand patted his arm before Muzaka managed to manifest his claws.

"No, Muzaka."

Muzaka rolled his eyes. He swayed out of Raizel's grip. "Fine. Apparently we _do_ have all night."

Raizel stepped forward, waiting a while before addressing the open area in an authoritative manner.

"Leader of the Kertia, I request your presence."

Immediately, the mist dissipated. A noble came into view. The slim, black form of the Kertia Clan Leader faced the Noblesse. His aura didn't flare. His footfalls made no sound. In one sweeping motion, he closed the gap between them and bent to a knee.

"Rajak Kertia greets the Noblesse. I ask you to pardon my rudeness, Raizel-nim."

"Why do you follow us, Rajak?"

Rajak stayed still. "I have been ordered to watch over the Noblesse's mansion. I followed when I realised you were leaving."

"Why?"

"I must report should you leave Lukedonia…You are leaving Lukedonia, Raizel-nim."

"Rajak Kertia…" Raizel's brows furrowed, looking solemn. He shared a serious look with Muzaka before going on. "I cannot abide by the Lord's wishes right now. Report to her, tell her I have a duty as the Noblesse and I must fulfil this. I must bring justice to the Zeroth Elder."

"Raizel-nim, please," Rajak interjected, looking up. "…The Lord fears for your life," he said suddenly, and he twitched, as if this wasn't what he was supposed to say. As if it wasn't what the Lord had said to him, either. Rajak felt a little foolish. "Lukedonia…Gejutel, Rosaria, _I,_ fear for your life. You mustn't use your power, Raizel-nim."

Muzaka turned towards them again, a grim feeling extinguishing his calm. His eyes dimmed as he stared at the back of Raizel's head. Because of him, Raizel was leaking and dying and there was nothing anyone could do. He didn't have much more soul left inside of him now that Frankenstein had been ripped from him. Muzaka opened his mouth, but did not speak. He didn't want to stop and be contemplating how having your soul ripped out would feel. When nobles were made of _soul._ Raizel deserved revenge, no matter how much longer he could go on. Muzaka knew him enough to know what Frankenstein meant to him. All he had to do was think of Ashleen.

"Rajak. There is no need for your concern."

An uncomfortable pause came between them.

"Rise."

Rajak lifted his head but remained on the floor. "I ask that you do not do this, Raizel-nim. You must not leave Lukedonia. The Lord will aid —"

"No, Rajak. This is something I must do." Raizel sighed, strenuously, "I am the Noblesse." He lingered for a moment, trying to pick out what he truly wanted to say. "This is my will, just as it is my duty. The Lord may not interfere."

Rajak frowned, trying to make himself heard. "Raizel-nim..."

"Rise, Rajak."

"I won't rise until you agree to stand down."

Muzaka sighed. "I used to have this problem too, Raizel. Hey, Clan Leader, just let it go, won't you? Please get up…and let us go." He eyed Rajak honestly. "He's going to go anyway, alright? You should know nothing can stop him. It's better this way, if you let both of us go."

Muzaka crouched in front of Rajak, giving him his earnest. "And he's not doing this alone. I'm not letting Raizel out of my sight. He's got me."

Rajak stared at Muzaka. After a moment, Rajak got up. Muzaka did so after him.

"Raizel-nim," Rajak said quietly, "is this your final decision?"

"Yes," the Noblesse answered.

"Then I will respect your will."

"Rajak," Raizel said, "…please do not tell the Lord right away."

"I can't…"

A hand flew up to swipe mask, and Rajak looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose I am not disobeying the Lord's orders if I delay the report for a short while…" he contemplated, tugging on the mask.

"Well, technically you're not doing anything wrong. You'll be listening to Raizel, after all," Muzaka added, "he's the _Noblesse."_

Muzaka turned to grin at Raizel, who sighed.

"Please, _take care._ " Rajak was gone in a fraction of a second. Muzaka's insides clenched involuntarily, an impressed look crossing his face a moment after. When he turned back, he bounded up to Raizel to catch up to him.

"We are losing time. Dark Spear has begun to move." A hurtful glint in Raizel's aura made Muzaka look at him worriedly. "Tesamu has unfinished business with me. If he is heading towards where we are, we will intercept him."

"Suppose it's a race against time now, too. If the Lord does issue out the Clan Leaders, I'll hold them back. I get everybody, except this _'Tesamu.'_ Got it." Muzaka nodded surely.

Raizel slowed for suddenly, making Muzaka skid to another stop. "Raizel?" Muzaka blinked.

Raizel stood there awkwardly. There was something unsaid between them. He smiled softly, and then, "Thank you, Muzaka."

Muzaka snorted. "Yeah, c'mon, Raizel."

* * *

The forbidden area was breached, the doors of the mansion flew open and a shadow skipped through.

 _Rael!_ Rajak called through his mind.

Another figure appeared, looking down from the staircase.

"Brother?" Rael jumped down to greet him. "What are you doing? Do-do we have orders?"

The large aura in the room swirled, purposefully drawing out Regis and Seira. The enhanced humans trailed behind them, bewildered.

"What's happening?" M-21 asked through the dark. Seira swipes her hand, lighting up all the candles in the room and on the chandelier. "I don't care whose orders it is, no one's kicking us out of this mansion."

"No, its not—" Rajak violently pulled off his mask, "It's the Noblesse, he's already gone."

"What do you mean, brother?"

"Rael!" Regis blurted, jerking his head in a direction to beckon him to search, and Rael's body blurred as he disappeared. He returned a few moments later, confirming it.

"Sir Raizel _is_ gone! Brother, where is he? Is it the Lord?"

"No," Rajak shook his head, "look, I came to tell you all that Raizel-nim is currently travelling to meet the one who murdered his bonded." He swallowed. "He will do battle. I fear that he will do anything to avenge Frankenstein. His life-force..."

"He's going to kill himself!" M-21 announced. M-21 turned and took Tao by the shoulder, hitting Takeo lightly in the stomach. "C'mon, Seira, Regis, we've got to suit up and follow. We're not letting him waste away his life-force."

"Thank you, Rajak Kertia," Seira asked, about to turn her back. "But why did you come to us first?"

"Because he won't listen to me. He won't listen to the Lord, and I doubt there's Clan Leader in Lukedonia who'll oppose him. You are the only people who might be able to help him." Rajak flitted to Rael and put a hand on his shoulder. "Go with them. I have to wait to report to the Lord. I'll call for back up as soon as I'm permitted to. Keep them all safe."

Rael looked importantly up to Rajak, nodding. "Understood, brother. Take care." He disappeared with the rest of the household.

When Rajak treaded through the forest a while later, he looked up, seeing the high-speed jet of the Noblesse's charges fly from Lukedonia.

* * *

Notes

Firstly, I'd like to use this space to let readers know that if you want to use Faust!Tesamu in your own fics, that's totally cool with me! You can write him however you want and like as long as you message me first. (So I can read it when it's finished and enjoy it hehehe...)

* * *

Though I have to add I dislike the idea of Faust and Franken being romantic in any way. For obvious reasons.

The end felt a little abrupt but...time to move along, everybody, plot, pace, characters, shuffle along... Sorry about the slow updates. It's cos I have writers block at present and I don't want to have a huge hiatus before the finish. I know what the deal is, just need to put it! To! Paper! Or, in a pages doc!

Dark Spear, at least in my interpretation, is an entity with its sentience borne out of a mutilated many that have sort of 'merged into one.' Or maybe the parts of consciences merged into one. There's supposed to be nothing but hate and vengeance left, it's what Dark Spear runs on. I feel like my Dark Spear is a lot more...sentient and knowing than canon Dark Spear is. I mean they both act out and seem to know to bide time when attacking Franken, but having fic-Dark Spear make critical choices makes them/it responsible for what's happening, right? Being able to weigh up choices, make pacts, realise hatred of people Franken comes into extended contact with...I'm not sure how to think about it, really. But Dark Spear can't be absolved of all guilt because they're Dark Spear, or because of the terrible way they were created, I guess I'm trying to say? Because Dark Spear is their own character in-fic. What do you think?

Ignes is really relevant in canon chapter 444 right now - that blue titan monster is too. Ignes and Tesamu releasing that cyborg monster back in chapter 14 is like. Yay. How noblesse-y!

What did you think of the chapter? Thanks for reading.

\- earl


	31. Heart of Gold 1

F.

The knowingness dried up in his eyes, turned into steam within those red orbs and billowed away on the Professor's command. He didn't hesitate or show even a shred of remorse as he stole away months and years of the noble's life in a matter of seconds. When the gawping, distant look set on the man's face, Tesamu knew it was safe to look at the Professor again. The Professor wasn't smiling like he was. Tesamu blanked his face. He watched, deadpan as the noble's legs gave out, his black shirt collar slipping out of the Professor's fingers. It hadn't come to blows. It hadn't even come to the Professor needing to leak gold light.

In a matter of seconds, Tesamu was the only one who knew what the Professor was truly capable of again. He wondered how long that could last, at the rate they were fighting enemies off their trail. For now, he set those thoughts aside. The Professor turned to him, two brows lifting in a jovial look.

"Are you quite alright, Tesamu?"

"I'm fine, Professor!"

The Professor exhaled sharply, smiling for his apprentice. "Good, then. I'm sorry, Tesamu. For all the days this one could have tried something on me, he chose this day. _Ugh_."

The Professor scrunched his nose, turning to see the position of the sun. "Hnnn…I think we still have time to go fishing." He bent down, gathered their supplies and swung it over his shoulder. "C'mon."

"Wait…are we just going to leave him here?"

"Does it look like he's getting up any time soon?" The Professor gave a darkly smug smirk, holding out his hand to him as he did it. Tesamu walked past the downed noble and took it.

"You took him down so easily."

"That's what class of noble you get in the Central Knights. Don't know what they're trying to achieve, sending spies out for me." The Professor huffed dejectedly.

Their hands swung between them as they walked. It was autumn in a still-warm afternoon. From the canopy above, leaves fluttered down and paved the path before them in red and oranges. Dry undergrowth crunched beneath their feet. Tesamu tugged on the Professor's hand a little, taking large, side-ways steps to crush leaves. Some time passed before the Professor tapped a finger on their clasped hands. "What is it?"

"What?"

"Something's bothering that head of yours and I can't take it."

Tesamu's mouth parted, then closed, pouting a bit. "How did you get so good at your mind-control resistance. And memory-wiping?"

The Professor made a face that said he wasn't expecting that. He nodded curtly. "Because I practiced. No one can start off having psychic powers." The Professor shrugged, motioning lazily behind them, "Unless you're like him. Hm. Notice how he's on the floor nonetheless?"

Tesamu burst into laugher, the sound getting louder when the Professor chuckled along with him. They walked a while further before Tesamu started, "Yes, but why?"

"Why?" the Professor echoed, mock-stumped. "It's an important skill." Tesamu nodded up at him. Thinking a little harder, the Professor carried on. "Wiping memories is like infiltrating a brain. You start with mind-resistance, build up tolerance to outside forces trying to get in. After that, it's a hop, a skip, and ripping apart noble psyches when they try touch what's _not theirs to touch."_

His voice fluctuated, blunting down. "You would have realised humans don't conventionally have psychic skills, and that is something that makes them so lacking against creatures like mutants and nobles." The Professor glanced at Tesamu, seeing him absolutely engaged at his side. Tesamu beamed at him and filed his words away. It looked as if the Professor was contending whether to tell him something already tucked in his mouth or not, but he gave in soon enough. Their swaying hands stilled.

"I immediately began to replicate mind control soon after my own mind was invaded."

Tesamu faltered. The Professor seemed to be surprised at the look of disbelief on his face. "Yes, that's right. How am I supposed to develop resistance if I've never been invaded?" He rethought his answer, finally settling on something. "I guess it doesn't really make a difference if you know or not, but when I was still on good terms with a village, I protected it from mutant attacks. Until one day, a noble showed up." He cracked a grin. "I'd met one or two nobles by then, so I knew what they were capable of. At that point in time, I barely had the strength to take down multiple mutants, never mind a noble."

Tesamu felt the Professor's hand squeeze.

"Obviously, I was a danger to whatever they were trying to do with that village — make more mutants or encourage more contracts or something else…but they'd blown whatever it was. They were going to use their psychic powers over everybody. An easy thing to do, a quick reparation — wipe them all."

Tesamu held on, walking faster to match the Professor's pace. He knew he couldn't help it, sometimes, but the Professor leaked out a glow of aura when he got agitated. His palm felt cold against the Professor's, pressure pulsed past his cheek, his aura stirring thoughtfully as he continued on. Tesamu didn't mind. He started swinging their hands again, keeping an even rhythm. There was something about the Professors tone of voice, carefully tuned for Tesamu's ears, that sent a shiver up his spine. Tesamu had the impression that this wasn't a story he'd tell to him at night. He told him stories of his science exploits, how he discovered adrenaline, different blood types; he'd told him of the fabulous things he'd could do with his aura, make it glow, make it radiate, make it heat up and spit yellow flames; and he told him of his long life. Tesamu knew — behind each of his teacher's amazing skills — there was something that drove him to hone it. This wasn't one of his bed-time stories.

"And then what happened, Professor Frankenstein?"

"Well, what do you theorise?"

Tesamu's brows furrowed as he looked down. The uncomprehending reds of the noble's eyes jumped out in his mind's eye, etching the image into him. "What did it feel like?"

"Getting my mind invaded?" The Professor paused for a long moment, the question lingering between them. He answered honestly. "It feels…different with every individual noble. Perhaps…it feels like — an impaling. A sharp, uncaring presence stuffs itself through the smallest openings in your mind, widening it enough for the full force to get through. But while it's weathering you down, you can't move."

The Professor swallowed and Tesamu used the moment to inhale. "Your body paralyses. For a few, short moments, it's as if…it's almost like an out-of-body experience. Because you're not in control anymore. You can see your surroundings around you, and you can feel your body breathe and shiver, but you don't have any will to understand what is happening — as it is happening to you."

The Professor scoffed and let out a tedious sigh. "It's painful, too," he added, completely upright, "Very painful. Especially the first time. Once my mind was ripped open, I could feel another man — another _thing,_ " he corrected, disgusted, "mill around."

Tesamu's heart began to beat fast. He couldn't help but recreate the images in his mind, imagining the Professor's eyes going muddy and murky, the pensive look in him dissolving as easy and quickly as that noble's did.

"I was immediately reliving…or at least, remembering parts of my own life. I'd lived a while already, then. Perhaps he was looking for something in me, trying to figure out how I fought off mutants. He knew what he was doing," he praised sarcastically. The Professor found his smile again, shaking his head. With a roll of his shoulders, every spot of aura retracted back within him. The hum under his skin, like an electric spark, disappeared. Tesamu walked on unsettled. "I could feel the exact memories he was wiping as clear as I see you right now. Before they were gone. Between one moment and the next, things that were a part of me for a long time just…were gone."

They turned a corner, walking off the path. "I lost a couple of mundane things, I believe. Well, _heheheh,_ I can't remember, can I? Once they're gone, they're gone forever."

"How did you stop him?!" Tesamu said urgently.

"I lost one thing that no one should have the power to take away. I'm not sure why, or how, exactly, but…I think losing that made me fight back."

They stopped and stood in the middle of the leafy undergrowth, wind fluttering the grounds, leaves piling at their feet.

"And then?"

The Professor haunched, looking at Tesamu with pursed lips. "Tesamu, I didn't mean to relay something so heavy today. We were supposed to go on a simple fishing trip. I'm sorry I managed to get jumped, back then."

"Professor, how did you fight back?!" Tesamu exclaimed.

The Professor's eyes widened, taken aback by how exasperated he was. He went on. "…I started to force my mind into theirs. I braced my consciousness where theirs was entering and went against the current. At that point, it was sort of…fry or forget so…" There was an uncertain look on his face, not the face of someone who came out as victor of a duel. "When my mind reached theirs, I didn't know how to do things delicately. I think I _decimated_ them," the Professor said very quietly. Tesamu went still. The Professor suddenly perked up. "Good, for a first time try, don't you think?"

Tesamu hadn't even noticed that they'd reached their destination. The Professor put down their supplies, handing a rod readied with bait to Tesamu. They sat there as time passed, each of them pulling their rods from the water to reveal nothing, more often than not. Tesamu's thoughts weren't with the task at hand. He couldn't do anything but picture how it would feel having a part of him ripped out like that. He'd watched the Professor do it to protect them both, but it didn't make it any less merciless. It irked him that he didn't think of something that was right in front of him. He just didn't care, if it were a noble. The nobles did this to humans every day, mercilessly. Suddenly, Tesamu dropped the rod. Picking it up from the water, he set it aside and frantically turned to the Professor.

"What did you forget, Professor Frankenstein?"

"I can't really tell you in concrete terms, can I?" he smiled, checking his rod again. Then he sat back, watching the line with a glassy and remote kind of look. "I'm not hiding anything from you, Tesamu," he began, "yet you only know me as 'Frankenstein.' "

Confusion crossed over Tesamu's expression. Then, slowly, it came over him.

"'Frankenstein' is my surname."

The Professor looked out to the water calmly. "If there's any more to it, I've lost it."

Tesamu's line began to pull and tug. Jolting him out of his daze, he dragged backwards, pulling a fish out of the water.

"Careful! Bring it over here — hold it by the line!"

It wasn't much, but the Professor patted his back, droning on about something else after changing the subject. But Tesamu nodded vaguely and watched him. The Professor honestly didn't seem all that miffed. Tesamu hardly felt a hint of anything negative from the Professor. It must have been a long time ago, after all. It simply wasn't important to him, anymore.

The Professor let him carry a portion of their items back to the hideout.

"Tesamu?"

"Professor?"

"Don't worry. Of course I'm going to teach you how to protect yourself. In every way possible. I promised you, haven't I?"

"Huh?"

"You're safe." He raised his brows in a boastful in a way that he seldom did. "I have the strongest mind-control powers over any being I've ever encountered," he said pridefully. "Other than that, learning absolute control over your own mind — you can learn to focus what you want, store information like you've never thought possible — you won't ever forget another thing. I'd planned to teach this to you later, but _cur non?_ Why not now?"

Tesamu immediately brightened up. "Thanks, Professor Frankenstein."

* * *

 **Heart of Gold**

Addiction had ran through his veins like blood once did. Cleaving and chugging, pulsing and beating, a broken, short-breathed rhythm of poisonous things flowed through. Dark Spear eroded him down. Down in the slag-stream made of grievances, overriding his system and contaminating his being, he walked with a purgatory enclosed inside. Punishing sins he didn't do, and others he might have done with a smile. It was a hot, coarse feeling gushing through him like lava paths, pyroclastic flow, something that couldn't forget no matter how hard he tried. When he closed his eyes, he might meander, wander the barren worlds he'd braved, but the scars and the hands caught up, making him flimsy, feeble, and he couldn't go on with only moors reflected in his eyes. His dreams were borne of a haunting.

But the ghosts were exorcised now.

So he dreamed of colour — the bright, vibrant hues of flower petals, all things that bloomed in the spring and the sort of things that would have bought the softest of smiles in the reflection of a clean glass pane. He dreamed of starlight and red seas, of cosmic, blood nebulae. But when he dreamed of these, his sight didn't leave the earth. He dug deep and intrinsic, nothing else in the world or out of the world that was quite like it. He dreamed of crimson eyes with a soft, scarlet glow. He dreamed of black hair and pale skin, of gentle, un-calloused hands and a deep, raspy voice; of porcelain cups, beige-stained saucers and tea spoons; of flapping velvet curtains and silky cravats, and the smell of candle smoke and lilacs: sweet things, nice things, elegant things.

When he dreamed, he felt good.

And _oh,_ he thought, he never knew dreaming could be so lovely.

* * *

"Get up, Professor," cooed a sticky voice, latching onto his eardrums like a parasite. "Wakey wakey, it's time to get up." She was blaring her power, rattling against the powerful forcefield of the cage. "Get up already, _Professor."_ Frankenstein got up, yawning at the wall before he rubbed the corner of an eye. She'd woken him up. He turned around.

"Ignes," he greeted politely.

Ignes made a face and gestured for Frankenstein to near the bars. He lingered too long before he slunk up to her. "To what reason do I owe this pleasure?"

"Professor Frankenstein," Ignes said, a strange emphasis on those words, "I've been bought up graciously, honestly, but precision and punctuality has always been important to me. I'm afraid I have no _patience_. So, I'll cut straight to the chase, should I?"

Frankenstein blinked, nodding his chin up.

"Dark Spear," Ignes put her hands together, "you're going to make one for me."

Oh. So that was what this was about. "I think," Frankenstein pondered, "I think the… _event_ that landed me with the prestigious name of the devil was," he shrugged coyly, "when I murdered an entire Union lab. You've read up upon me," Frankenstein's eyes flickered up to meet Ignes's — as red as hell against everything grey. "What do you think?"

Ignes stretched out an arm, clasping the bars over her head and leered. "I think it's admirable."

Frankenstein shot her a smile at that. Disgusting.

"I think that's exactly what I want," she continued, black hair falling and touching the bars. It was a surprise, how much she looked like Roctis when it framed her face.

"I want Dark Spear for that exact reason," Ignes said, "I don't give a damn about the Union."

Frankenstein made a face. Slowly, he turned around, swiped his hair behind him, and leisurely sat down on one of the cell chairs. He leaned into it, hands resting at each side like a throne.

"The only reason I stayed here was for resources" Ignes sighed. "But it's all rules and regulations here. I thought I'd escaped all that after Lukedonia. The Union isn't enough for me anymore." She closed her eyes regrettably. "Its leaders can't offer me anything else. All I want is to be able to exist without any threats from others. I just want security."

"You're just after a little power," Frankenstein finished neatly for her.

"Maybe."

Frankenstein scoffed.

"But what's wrong with that?" Ignes implored. "That's what everyone wants. The Union is a sinkhole that I can't stand anymore. I want to get out. I need power to do so. And once I have a soul weapon like Dark Spear — I'll be _free."_ Ignes's hands slid down from the bars, resting near her head on either side. Her hands squeezed over the bars. "So here's the deal. You give me the directions to make a Dark Spear, and I merrily let you out."

"Oh?"

"I can get you out easily. I helped design this cell, you know. And then it gets better from there."

 _"Do_ enlighten me, Ignes."

"You and me. We get to do what made you so famous in your heyday."

Frankenstein rolled back his shoulders and glared. _"Kill?"_

"Every single scientist in this base," Ignes said, shaking her head. "Just like you want to."

"My," Frankenstein started, popping a knuckle, "what more could I ask for?"

"The Noblesse?"

Frankenstein's posture stiffened fractionally.

"Yeah, I thought that'll get your attention." She moved off the bars, standing straighter. "Faust lied to you. We know where the Noblesse is. He's in his mansion. Back on Lukedonia. All it took was some bribery from some lower Central Knight. For what they thought was a harmless piece of information..."

Frankenstein nodded at her, a tight smile stretched across his lips. His insides clenched, tied themselves into knots, uncurled like ribbons, and then twisted together again.

"Show me how to make a Dark Spear. Murder every single scientist here, _all chosen by Faust himself,_ and then run along back to the Noblesse. Put every raw material here to use. How does that sound?" Ignes tapped twice on the bars with a nail.

Frankenstein looked down. Rearranging his hands, he began to pop the rest of his knuckles in slow and eerie procession. Ignes watched him contemplate her words. "It'll be easy to get out of here with my help," Ignes added, "I'm Faust's second in command."

That made a giggle escape from Frankenstein. Ignes waited a moment before speaking. "What?"

"What's wrong with Cetus?"

Ignes removed her hands from the bars, her weight leaned on one foot as she regarded him darkly.

"I just feel so sorry for you, Cetus," Frankenstein chirped, face tilting to see her again. "You're not enough for the Kravei heir. She wants _Dark Spear_."

Ignes seemed to stiffen before recovering almost immediately. Frankenstein detected the split second where Ignes decided to continue the tactic. She relaxed and cracked a grin, a row of perfect, white teeth. "Heheh! So what's your answer?"

Frankenstein got up and walked to face her at the bars. "My answer," he stressed, "is an apology." Ignes pulled back, looking perplexed. "I always wondered why he did what he did, but it all became clear when Dark Spear devoured him. Despite his shortcomings, Roctis cared about you," he said starkly. "Remember Roctis? Your father? That I murdered? He and you. I don't know who I can manage to stomach more. The traitor or the disappointment."

Ignes's eyes flew wide open before narrowing into a pointed glare.

Frankenstein sighed sourly. "He betrayed the Noblesse for you. He sent that message of the 'human's war' for you. He died for you. Roctis Kravei, wrong as he was, went against everything he knew, for you, Ignes. And yet, a couple days past his late demise, you come with a smile on your face to me for _help,_ " he spat.

Ignes raised her chin. _"Tsk, tsk._ You should have listened more carefully," Ignes said dangerously, "I didn't ask for drabble, Professor. I asked you to answer a _question."_

"Then here it is. " Frankenstein's face was a blank sheet. "I would much sooner crawl back to Dark Spear. Have them devour me. Find what's left of Roctis's disgrace of a soul. And then pat him on the shoulder, like good old chums, to give my condolences for what kind of a noble he ruined himself for, than liaise with you." Frankenstein chuckled twitchily, covering his mouth with the back of his hand and watching Ignes with accusatory, unblinking eyes. "So you can take your offer and see if Tesamu will still have you at his side."

Ignes snarled, lips quirking at his last comment.

Frankenstein exhaled. "It's obvious you tried something with him and failed. There's no other explanation for you to come slinking into this place like a kicked puppy. Just one thing, Ignes. You're lucky Cetus is the most lenient, forgiving soul weapon in existence, because if it were Dark Spear," Frankenstein made a face, stifled a scoff, "You're so rotten that _Dark Spear_ would find you unpalatable to down. And Dark Spear spent an age trying to eat me!" Frankenstein laughed out loud this time, a roar of a laughter booming up and down the aura-enforced walls.

The cell door clicked, a series of whirs and mechanical holds unlocking as the resistance of the noble-powered forcefield began to fade. The door swung open. Frankenstein silenced. The clack of Ignes's heels rang across the lab as she walked into the cell. Frankenstein turned from the bars, looking down at her without betraying any reaction.

"That," Ignes said, voice soft, "was the easy way. Either you give me the directions to make a Dark Spear or," she cocked her head to the side. "We can opt for the hard way," she said simply. "That's the human saying, isn't it? Did I say it right?"

Ignes began to march forward in the spacious cell. Frankenstein dropped his smirk. He backed away from her, eyes snapping left-right at her live wire aura that sparked flauntingly in the air.

"What do you say?" she repeated once last time.

Frankenstein hit the back wall. "I've never felt so insulted. I've never done anything the easy way, Ignes."

Red eyes flared. Frankenstein's mouth opened as the charcoal of the world warped around Ignes and the world went dirtier than it already was.

* * *

His body shut down and went limp and numb. He was still awake, he was still aware of the sight before him but the pictures didn't match with the feelings and there was nothing he could do. He didn't want to do anything. He didn't think of doing anything. It all felt so distant until an unfamiliar aura tickled behind his consciousness.

* * *

Notes

Yeah I couldn't have a 7000+ word chapter so I cut it into two. Next part coming immediately.


	32. Heart of Gold 2

**Heart of Gold** **2**

Cloaked and hidden with a behind the hardness of his face — a human face — a soundless scream etched into those lines, deceptively youthful, deceptively beautiful, Ignes wanted to drag her nails across that stiff-set jaw. See if it could still feign power, keep composure, still try to hold in the fear. She wanted to crack that mask.

Slowly, timidly, Ignes's lips turned up. The Noblesse's right hand man, the human whom the ditzy Previous Lord had praised, and dared despise nobles as if he had a right, was cornered like a rat. Bought low and powerless by his own apprentice, and his little empire thought he was dead. There was no one coming for him. She would have laughed. She would have applauded. Her father was dead, _but,_ it was thanks to him she had Cetus. She was going to get what she always wanted and more.

Ignes thrust forward, enclosing her hand around his pale neck, her fingers digging into his skin. Frankenstein slammed against the wall, opening his mouth for a last suck of air as Ignes began to strangle him.

"What do you think of me now? Professor Frankenstein?" Jerkily, she pushed him up the wall and lifted him off the ground, tilting her head to draw her fringe out of the way of the view. It was human nature to keep trying even when it was futile and the victim knew it — humans were flawed creatures whose knee-jerk reactions forced them to keep sucking for breath until the end. With every desperate inhale, Ignes held her grip, with every exhale, Ignes tightened it. "I'm going to finish what Father had intended for you," she proclaimed, eyes dimming, "Aren't I a such an admirable daughter?"

 _"Guhh…"_ She could feel him react, squirm like the bug his species was. No matter how much he dressed himself up, layered his many armours, nothing could forgo the fact that he was human. His listless fingers clutched her wrists, fumbling with them, trying to peel them off when she had the power of a Clan Leader. And she had _him_ to thank for that. Frankenstein struggled for breath, his feet dangling two inches off the floor and pinned to the wall so hard until it began to creak. Yet, when Ignes looked in his drab eyes, watching, waiting for his pathetic spirit to break, he only stared back. He watched her, the air being squeezed out of his lungs with every exhale, without a trace of surprise. Even like this, he was still going to challenge her? When he was about to give in to his shaking? She sighed, tightening her grip.

Moments passed and Ignes's eyes widened when Frankenstein skipped a beat and stopped himself from sucking in. Frankenstein cracked her a smile.

"The hard way, _Professor."_

Ignes nodded forward, letting lose her power. Ages of laying low and waiting, letting a human rob her of what she deserved — she was going to steal everything from Faust. Finally, fear flashed through his eyes as Ignes tore through Frankenstein's last attempt to stop the inevitable, a pitiful-excuse of a mind-barrier. She ripped into him as raggedly and carelessly as possible, ready to extract what was useful. Ignes exhaled, letting her consciousness flow like a rapid stream into Frankenstein.

"It's ugly in here, Frankenstein." Ignes's lips turn down for a moment, lightly amused, "it's shredded." She forced past his weak defences. Frankenstein's face grew drowsy and distant. His hands nails dragged feebly down Ignes's arm before dropping to his sides. Ignes dropped her smile and meandered around his head, opening everything with a door.

"Oh, you're old, Frankenstein," she mused, "You're so little and helpless. It's a miracle how you've fared in reality." Ignes picked up her other hand and traced a finger down the line of his throat. Blowing in his face, she brushed at his long hair, bringing it out of his face. Ignes took a glance at the dreams, the things lurking in the dark, dismissed them as she glossed over his most internal thoughts. The ages flashed by: she saw burning stakes, burning skin, saw hands working on spinning wheels, catching rabbits, sword-fencing, saw a hundred handshakes with boring old humans and many more faces and places she couldn't care less about. She reached past it all, sinking herself into _Frankenstein._ _"Ehe_ …

"… _ehehehehhahah!_ — you're such a hopeless romantic, it's _comical._ If everybody knew, if all of those precious humans knew — their Devil was full of _sugar…"_

Heels clacked against intangible floorboards. Ignes opened her red eyes in the dimness as she headed up a staircase, sliding her hand up the railing and frowning a little as she peered around. _Did she go too deep? Did she go off course?_ Frankenstein's consciousness unravelled like a rug before her, placing everything for her taking. Ignes wandered around, skimming over the chalky fragments of childhood, memories from a millennia ago, and a changed Lukedonia. She tottered around, tasting bits of knowledge here and there. Mountains of information on science and medicine and disease, human experimentation, and enough to build a city's-worth of info on self enhancements and harnessing untapped power — Ignes soaked in all his centuries of work. Desire wriggled into huger, and hunger festered to greed — Ignes snorted, wondering why 'Professor' was supposed to be an insult. Faust meant it. Frankenstein was a _genius_. Ignes licked a finger and picked out the pieces with ease.

"Where is Dark Spear, Frankenstein?" Ignes mused to herself. She was fully in control; if she so wished it, she could stop Frankenstein's heart from beating with a thought. She could stop the flow of his blood on a whim. "The blueprints for Dark Spear…" she hummed, sifting through the mass. "All this boring riff raff, Professor, it's a shame. Curing diseases is not the same as brewing one, I assure you. I wouldn't have needed someone like Faust if you'd been in the Union."

Ignes's heels clacked away from the medical files. "Dark Spear…or, when I figure out how to replicate it, I can indulge myself a little, can't I?" she said, raising a thoughtful brow. "I'm a noble, red and black has been the only fashion for a million years, but hm…I'm feeling a little rebellious! How about…pink spear? I could be minimalistic — white spear? No…no, no, too much Union. What else is there? Blue? Hnn." She took in a short, impatient breath.

"Where is it, Frankenstein?"

Ignes's expression changed, and she dropped whatever she was holding. With one powerful stomp of her heel, she pounded her power into Frankenstein. Frankenstein's mind began to spin, moving and diverging until Ignes was right in the middle — the place where the rest of his mind revolved around. This _was_ Frankenstein. What Frankenstein was made of. Ignes placed a hand on the thin opening of his psyche. "Whatever you're hiding, don't think you can keep it from me. You're mine, Frankenstein."

She forced herself in.

Light poured onto her face, blinding her until she saw white flash in her own mind. She startled, getting into a battle stance and clamping her eyes shut. All of a sudden, a heat enveloped her, and she threw her hands up defensively. Her own anger simmered and Ignes grunt made the place shake. What was the thing that was beaming before her? _Was there a third presence in this human's mind?_ Ignes flared her power, driving red aura into Frankenstein as she straightened up against the other invasion. Ignes looked upon the light.

It was as if she'd traversed into the centre of the Earth. Hovering in the void, she was met with something gleaming — a moving, churning core, with light waves colliding and flowing, flames spitting and weaving. Something seized inside her. Ignes backed away, finding no way out, no way to get away from the molten magma-like power. It felt...impure — tawny instead of the gold it used to be. It was aura — condensed, withdrawn and hidden away like a Kertia's with perfect precision.

Her breath caught in her throat.

 _Are you done?_

Terrible and ferocious, a fluctuating, feverish warmth struck her, yellow light fading into white until she saw nothing but stars in her eyes, the fragments that orbited this internal system of the sun. It was both enticing and repulsive, like balancing over the edge of a cliff. She got in too deep. She got in too deep.

 _Are you nearly done browsing?_

The voice closed in around her, making the vast void shrink down, the empty space crumbling until it coiled her and Ignes gasped aloud in someone else's mind. _"Hnngh!_ Wha—" She struggled, snapping the tendrils of murky copper at her toes.

 _Honestly, I was getting bored waiting for you to stumble across my aura. Surprise._

Ignes began to writhe, her red getting put out by the beige and she could do nothing as she lost control of her own consciousness. It was a tiny keyhole that blurred away from her, so far away that she'd forgotten the shape. Ignes was stuck, isolated from her own body. She couldn't really remember how she got here.

"Frankenstein!" she yelled, trying to keep the panic out of her voice, "Where are you?! Show yourself! This is a cheap trick! If you're too cowardly to fight a noble then—"

 _Excuse me,_ echoed his voice all around her, _it was you that walked right into a snare. Can't blame me._

Ignes growled, pulling free a hand. She beamed red into the marred gold, forcing it back enough to untangle herself. She swiped her hands, forcing a path, her head turning in all directions to try to find a way out.

 _You're hilarious, Ignes. Much more fun than your father, anyway. Well. I take back every little thing I said about Roctis. Actually, let's say, half of the things. Nevertheless, poor bastard was wrong in trying to protect you._

"I'm warning you," Ignes gritted.

 _But I'd go crazy if I had to deal with you all day, too._

"Shut up, Frankenstein." Ignes faltered. "You're still _mine._ I'm still inside here."

 _Can it, Ignes._

She could feel him _smile._

 _Yours? Don't insult my integrity._

"ARUGH! Show yourself!"

Something flared and Ignes cracked her eyes to see.

"My, are you so used to getting your way." Frankenstein's form had appeared, glaring at Ignes in utter disappointment. "You're really going to throw a tantrum in someone else's head?" He sighed, shrugging. "Lord, you're a mess. I…wonder why I thought I might actually have trouble with you…" Frankenstein brushed a hand down his throat where Ignes had touched him. "Looks like Tesamu didn't hold you in any high regard these long years."

"Franken _stein,"_ Ignes growled, voice changing as her teeth sharpened into fangs, "let me ou-" She faltered, brows furrowing before relaxing. _"No._ You're going to give me what I'm looking for."

"Dark Spear?" Frankenstein mused.

"The information to make another Dark Spear." Ignes twisted around, lifting her arms and gesturing to all around her in mocking. "Or I destroy all this. I fry your mind."

A glint of surprise flitted over Frankenstein's manifestation _._ Then, suddenly, like a thunder reverberating through the distance, _a_ rumble of a laughter echoing around the space. _"Hahha-heh…heheh…."_ Frankenstein whipped around, bending forward to catch his outburst between his fingers, pretending to cover up the hilarity. Laughter rebounded around the wall-less space around them, sinking Ignes into a deep, rumbling chasm. Ignes had not caught Frankenstein. Frankenstein had caught Ignes.

He stifled himself, drew his hair out of the way and folded his arms in earnest. "Did you really come at me, with your well-thought-out plan to invade my mind? Just…from a purely technical viewpoint, was that the best course of action?"

Ignes growled, lips creasing, hands balled into fists.

"Let me lecture you — _you know, just food for thought_ — you stupidly followed Tesamu for who knows how long, for the express purpose of creating yourself a soul weapon? Ignes, you got complacent, because up to the moment wherein Tesamu acquired Dark Spear, you could beat him in a fght. But that's just like you. You underestimated him. And now you're here, with plan B, throwing your brain at me to steal the thing?"

"I bided my time," Ignes gritted, "Once I take care of you, I go after Faust!" Ignes was fuming, red eyes glowing with fury and hate — but that didn't disguise how disorientated she was. How could Frankenstein be able of trapping her like this? Had he willingly let her invade? Then something else weeded into her mind and Ignes balked.

"Ignes, Ignes…" Frankenstein tutted, cocking his head upwards, "So you understand Tesamu's too strong for you to invade, even before when you could physically overpower him." He sighed again, furrowing his brows. "But _where_ do you think all his psychic capabilities originated from?"

The light in Ignes's eyes went out.

"Me."

Frankenstein took a step forward, and Ignes immediately stepped back. She flinched. Frankenstein smirk wiped off his face.

"I'm the goddamned _Professor_ , Ignes."

"Let me out."

"I helped him build up the strongest mind-control I could muster."

"Let me out and I'll finish this with you!"

"I taught the Zeroth Elder everything I knew."

"LET ME OUT!"

"And you have the nerve to trespass in my mind?!"

"FRANKENST—"

"—Say goodbye to Cetus, Ignes Kravei."

Frankenstein's form fell away like a mirage. The grounds opened up, that great, murky light flared beneath her as it churned upwards, encroaching her senses. Ignes opened her mouth to yell, but the aura struck her — as bright and clear as daylight, as scorching and melting as the surface of the sun — destroying her mind. She silenced for the last time. She burnt out from the inside out.

Blue eyes fluttered unstrenuously open, blinking a little to refocus. Frankenstein straightened, batting Ignes's limp arm off of him, dusting his clothes a bit, and used his fingers to comb back his hair. When he was content with himself, he finally looked to Ignes.

She was standing there, mouth open, eyes wide, frozen in time with the last look of disbelief on her terrified face. Slowly, silently, blood began to trickle from her nostrils, until it trailed down her lips, reddening the cracks between her teeth. Her eyes weren't so drawing anymore, they lay still and hazy and lifeless. The blood trails jutted out from the black and grey of his surroundings, and he was almost thankful to be able to see it — _see something._ Frankenstein lingered a moment, waiting for the noble to slither back and die in her own mind.

"It was wrong of you to follow Tesamu. Who knows what you could have been, if you'd had the sense to stay away from him. It might be the worst mistake you made." Frankenstein huffed humourlessly. "Though, Tesamu had the goddamned conscience to not fraternise with you."

Frankenstein passed her body, easily avoiding the powered-down prison doors as he simply walked out.

"But then again, that's not saying much."

He left, satisfied by the slam of Ignes's skull against fibreglass floor. He was almost tempted to turn around, gaze at that rich coloured blood that would have spattered his prison, but no. He had places to be, people to beat. He wandered around, dithering here and there as he flipped through organised files, ripping out pages that annoyed him. Disinterested and wanting to keep himself from retching mucus — he'd been on the drip-machine for all that time — he promptly dropped what he was holding and placed his hand instead, over the control panels. Light glowed from beneath his touch, and he gathered it, pooled it on command like he so easily did a long time ago. The system malfunctioned, sparking and whirring out of control as his aura flowed over the Zeroth Elder's domain, down the cables, over the technology, destroying every store of data within the base. An alarm began to sound, footsteps began to shuffle outside, and his senses jumped.

Red light began to blink and switch, blink and switch as the place was put on lockdown. Frankenstein's sight flashed between blood and rorschach again, contracting and dilating with every glaring switch.

Red: He stole a lab coat from a hanger, smoothed the cloudy-white material down before he snatched a up a clipboard as he opened the door.

Grey: Frankenstein joined the flow of scientists and let them guide him over to the assembly points, where they would gather while they tried to snuff out the intruder.

Red: A lockdown worked for him. He was too refined for another fiasco like all those years ago. He didn't need revenge.

Grey: Frankenstein was going to wipe the minds of every single scientist and worker here — clean and empty.

* * *

Raizel and Muzaka touched down in Korea.

For a moment, Raizel faced the setting sun, watching the glow fade away over the city structures.

"Just in time, huh?" Muzaka yawned, hands stretched behind his neck. His face turned rosy in the leaving light. Raizel shut his eyes and turned away, concentrating. "So, which direction should we go?" Muzaka asked.

He blinked his eyes open. "Nowhere," Raizel said. "They're coming to us."

Muzaka 's arms trailed down from his stretch. " _They're?_ "

"Tesamu has bought others with him. They are coming."

"Ok. So, you get Tesamu and I get everyone else?"

Raizel turned to Muzaka, deadpan. Muzaka shrugged. "What? Any damage I get gets healed. Just worry about yourself. When I'm about to die, then maybe you can step in. I still have things to do while I'm here. Otherwise, it's below my _werewolf pride_ ," he said, unenthusiastically.

Raizel only stared off into the distance again. "And the same for me. Do not help me, Muzaka. Do not help me at all."

Muzaka scrunched his nose. "Whatever." He'd be the judge of that. He took a deep breath, watching the last sliver of light dwindle and die.

Muzaka's made a face when Raizel laid a hand on his shoulder. "I will not need any help, Muzaka," he said, sure and calm.

That made Muzaka weary, but he shrugged again, lifting Raizel's hand up and down on him.

"And thank you."

Muzaka sighed and sent a jovial smack on Raizel's back, pushing him forward a little. "I'm not doing this for your thanks, I'm doing this so you don't have to feel what I have to feel." He skimmed the new terrain from side to side, looking over the human realm with a predatory look. "So let's go meet them right now? Or do you want to wait?"

Raizel pursed his lips thoughtfully. "There is a lake here. My friends from school took me here after classes one day. We had burgers under a tree near the water." Raizel turned to him. "Humans seldom go at this time. We will go there."

"Fight on a lake?" Muzaka asked. Raizel nodded. "Ok, lake, then." No matter what, no matter the utter change in circumstances, Muzaka had always admired Raizel like that — his duty to protect always came first. Even when those principles had led them to fight eight hundred years ago, Muzaka couldn't begrudge Raizel for that now. Not when their fallout had caused him to become parted from Frankenstein for that long. Raizel didn't deserve it.

"Lead the way," Muzaka exclaimed.

Raizel leapt away purposefully and Muzaka followed. After a minute or so Muzaka called out, "I hope you know where you're going, Raizel!"

* * *

Notes

I was so sure that I was going to get rid of Ignes before the webtoon was going to but they beat me to it! Anyway, here's two chapters of Ignes getting wrecked. Tesamu's Union base is based in South Korea somewhere. Again, we're going to pretend that by some magical noble means, Rai and Muzaka made it from near Bermuda to Korea in less than a night. Shh.

I also had to be ironic and call it 'heart of gold' and make it literal. Ehehhe.

Thanks for sticking with this fic guys. You all rock.

MSM-0808 - Nope, we're seeing this one to the end. Might take a hiatus or two to get there, but we're doing it.

Elims - Welcome back Elims, heheh! Yeah writing this has made me more conflicted over Dark Spear than ever XD This just get more complicated.

Chapter 30 Guest - Making ppl suffer at 2:33am is my reason for being. Thanks for letting me know and I'M GLAD YOU LIKED IT.

general zargon - Thank you very much! Yes, as I said, my feelings on Dark Spear get ever more complicated I don't know anymore XD

Chapter 21 guest - ch21 was Too Damned Late. That was one of my favourite parts to write in the fic :D Rai Being Sad, but, in a picturesque way. If that makes sense. Because I am a horrible angst author and that's the kind of stuff I come up with. Dear Rai and his loneliness. But it's going to be ok. He's going to make it through. Franken just broke himself out of jail in this chapter they're both on their way.

Peasant - You reviewed, "Fatabulous angst drama writing over the top descriptions and dialogue 1:23 A.M school nights and a box of tissues." This is good enough to go in the description box. Thank you~

Laryna6 - Thank you for getting me to post this and enjoy. Feels like I'm doing something, finally! Now how is it? (ffnet only lets me put in one question mark how regrettable)


	33. World With No Colour

**End of 8th century**

 **Gregorian Calendar DCCXCVI**

 **Year 795**

Shock

"She's lost to us, Doctor," the father said, hand over his mouth.

Tesamu's eyes went their widest as he looked up at Frankenstein pleadingly. Frankenstein looked over the large crowd huddled in the stone hut, thinking for a second before sighing.

"No. She's not. Step aside."

"What?"

"Do you want your daughter to live or not?"

"Yes!"

Frankenstein gently pushed Tesamu behind him and pressed his hand over the daughter's chest, checking her heartbeat. It was weak. Still moving, jittery, but weak. The muscles had stopped working in sync as a unit, each section fluttering out of beat and causing the heart to fibrillate. He could fix this. But this didn't require medicine or herbs or stitches. Blue eyes flitted around the room one more time, looking over the faces that had been friendly to a stranger like him. It would be time to move on after this. Which was a pity. Tesamu would have liked it here. The people were nice.

"Step back, please."

The family huddled backwards, letting the doctor do his work. Tesamu peeked over Frankenstein's shoulders before he shot him a look and he backed away, too. In truth, space wasn't a matter, but if someone should attack during the procedure he'd have time to react without putting either the patient or Tesamu in danger. He pressed a finger to the patient's heart, checking the state of it and calculating to pinprick accuracy, how much power to use. They weren't ready to see this. He wasn't ready to let them see this. But he'd be damned if he was going to let a young girl die because of his dilly-dallying. There was no decision to be made. Frankenstein drew in a breath, steeled himself for the heat, and then let gold aura flare from his hand.

A few gasps of horror sounded, as expected. He felt Tesamu stand protectively behind him.

Frankenstein furrowed his brow and pursed his lips as he moulded his aura into voltage. Sparks crackled from his hand, flashing over his face like lightning without thunder. Simply speaking, by using a high voltage to pass an electric current through the heart would force it back into responding normally. All of the scattered currents causing individual pockets to flutter out of sync would be aligned by the artificial one, and, with some luck (god, he hated putting it like that; there was no luck, only whether he did it right or did it wrong-) the current should shock the heart back into working condition. For an adult, the heart should receive roughly 300 joules of electrical energy. For his patient, he did some quick tweaking.

Frankenstein narrowed his eyes. With a quick press, he shocked the patient's heart. Tesamu gasped. For a split second, he wondered if Tesamu had understood something that he'd missed, that he'd done something wrong. But then he remembered that Tesamu had never seen him use his powers like this before. The only time Tesamu had ever seen him use him aura was when he fought. Leaning down to check, he frowned. The worry had come again as soon as it left him, dread nipping behind it. _Did he not do it perfectly?_ He raised a hand to shock again before the sound of a beat grabbed his attention and he froze. Everybody froze.

The next few moments went by insurmountably slow.

Then, the patient stirred. The girl inhaled as if yawning, a troubled expression falling over her face. She opened her eyes to Frankenstein's crackling-yellow hand over her head. The girl paled. Reflexively, she pulled away and yelped. And then suddenly, without warning, the entire hut _imploded._ The entire extended family began to jump and holler, hands flying to heads and grabbing at faces to kiss, to slap with affection, and Frankenstein got out of the way for the them to celebrate. The girl would live. To the end of her days, hopefully.

Frankenstein shuffled over to the door, Tesamu at his heels before someone grabbed him by the waist and thrust him into the centre to hug. _"She's going to live! You—"_ Frankenstein was more than slightly taken aback. The few times he'd actually shown his power like this, he'd gotten pitchforks and torches. He'd made quite a name for himself as a doctor, but when it came to his abilities with aura, it simply didn't elicit positive connotations. But he shuffled around the hut, nodded his tentative _'you're very welcomes'_ and felt stupidly caught off guard. He let them push him back to the young girl, thoroughly squashed by most of her family, before he got a chance to bob down and see her.

"…Do you feel ok?" he asked, reaching out his hand.

She nodded blankly. "Yes?"

"Nothing feels strange?" Frankenstein asked in a high voice.

"I feel a little tingly."

"Oh. That's…that's absolutely normal." He beamed. Then she was promptly snatched away to be hugged some more.

"Doctor Faust! You are a gift from the heavens!" "Thank you, Doctor." "Doctor—"

Frankenstein took the time to shake all of their hands — individually. During the twelfth handshake, his eyes caught his apprentice grinning from ear to ear behind the family. By the twentieth, he was shooting him thumbs-up in the crowd and when he reached the end of the line Tesamu was waiting. Tesamu held out his hand expectantly. Frankenstein huffed. He went to a knee, looked Tesamu in his grinning face and shook his hand firmly.

The girl was fine and the doctor who saved her was celebrated. That kind of response was the general consensus for a long, stable time. When next he came across a case like that again, he'd long lost Tesamu. He'd lost that aura. It was worth remembering, though, how Tesamu looked to him like he was a hero, and that was all he'd ever wanted to be for him.

It was the kind of story he'd tell Raizel when they sat together at one end of their long table in the dinner hall, the kind of story that made him happy to tell and Raizel was there to listen. That he used to be someone a young boy was proud of.

* * *

 **World with no colour**

Dozens upon dozens of private scientists and workers lay all over the battered compound. The information over ever major system was eradicated. All of the research records, the advancements and theories and tests. Centuries worth of work. All gone. Union soldiers flooded into the base, tagging every downed worker and moving the ones deemed important away on stretchers. The crime scene was the entire base and every single mind within it. This place was to be shut down and torched. The Zeroth Elder's entire operation had been compromised.

A man in a suit vest walked down the empty corridors, down the hallways that echoed and groaned. He paced around every corner, seeing the full damage of the place. Not one life was lost within these walls. And yet — the walls themselves…

This place was shredded. Approaching the centre of the compound, he reached for a key card before stopping. The Zeroth's base wouldn't have opened for him anyway. But the security locks in place had been burned out through the main system. He looked down, stashing away the card. The screen on the lock was still glitching, flickering between short shows of light and _Union - Red Clearance._ He pointed a finger over it. With a quick breath, he jammed a powerful beam of energy into it. The screen crackled dead. Steel-reinforced, double layered doors with electrical interweaving. They were designed to bar a mobilised tank. Without the central power, without the forcefield, the man pushed it open with one hand. It was almost far too easy, with his modified strength.

He stepped inside. Everything in the laboratory was ruined. Except the prison. _Funny_ — who would think to design a prison in the centre of operations? Even he wasn't so pompous. Of course things were bound to go wrong. When he reached the untouched prison doors, a smile played on his lips. Footsteps tapped behind him.

"Sir?"

The sound of a pen clattering against clipboard echoed into the spacious room.

"Doctor Crombel?"

"Did you find the Zeroth Elder in the end?"

"No, Sir."

Crombel turned to him. There was always something about Yuri's smile. Not yet a smirk, but he didn't look _like that_ when he was happy. Yuri was never happy. Just _satisfied_. And then a little more than satisfied. Soft-spoken and clinical,Yuri would remain the most efficient in the face of this little tragedy. He showed Crombel the clipboard.

"The numbers look about right," Crombel said, putting it aside. "It's beyond me, how the Zeroth managed to keep this quiet from the rest of us. Even the Second and First."

"We were wrong. The Second was in on it. If it weren't for Maduke supporting him in the shadows, he wouldn't have made it past the incident three months ago," Yuri explained.

"Supporting him?" Crombel scoffed. "Turning a blind eye doesn't mean he's on the Zeroth's side."

"You're right, Dr Crombel."

"What other news do you have for me," Crombel asked, settling into one of the working swivel chairs.

Yuri's smile deepened. "Congratulations, Dr Crombel. The ranks of the Union are in uproar. The Zeroth — Faust's work is finished. We've already discovered throngs of work that he'd withheld from the Union. Unfortunately the contents have all been conveniently deleted, but it's scandalous nonetheless. His own modified powers have only recently been revealed and audited. Lagus Tradio and the noble traitors have admitted their endorsement of him. The Second Elder has yet to comment. The Third Elder has yet to comment. The Fourth," Yuri paused. "Roctis is dead."

"And?"

"And so is his daughter, Ignes. By the looks of things." Yuri finally turned his head, regarding the body in the prison for the first time since he'd entered. "Faust and his allies are still missing as of this moment. I expect they'll be located soon."

"Mmm," Crombel tilted back his head and sighed.

"What will you do, Dr Crombel?" Yuri asked.

"Nothing."

Yuri let silence break over them.

"Let this run it's course. Faust is finished. Lagus and Maduke — they put their trust in the wrong human. Sooner or later, they'll all crash and burn. Much akin to this faciilty."

Yuri nodded his agreement.

"Whether the Noblesse or the bonded is truly dead or not — either way it will be a win. The Union wasn't ready get rid of them so early on. Even if they come out unscathed…it doesn't matter to us in the long run."

"Yes, Sir."

Yuri stiffened. He reached into his suit jacket for a buzzing device. Touching his glasses, he eyed the screen with a serious look.

"Dr Crombel," he said, moving in front of him and placing the device on the floor. "You need to take this," Yuri said gravely, "The First Elder is calling for an immediate meeting."

"Answer it."

Static crackled. A green panel appeared, the hologram buzzing before settling down and the numbers became clear. Third Elder, Second Elder, Maduke. And the First.

"Good evening, all," came the Third's voice. "I believe we need to ascertain the current state of the Elders and the Union tonight," he finished daintily.

"Hello. Agreed," Crombel answered.

"How is the situation in Faust's compound, Dr Crombel?" Maduke asked immediately.

The number 2 reflected in Crombel's glasses. He smirked to himself, Yuri at his side. "Everything is going according to plan. We are holding all the compromised workers. Whoever was kept at this compound has wiped the brains of every worker here. I doubt they even know their own names at the moment," he said with a touch of regret. It disappeared as suddenly as it came. "Second Elder…I must wonder, who was kept prisoner in this place for months?" he asked, keeping a touch of confusion in his voice. "And did Faust truly launch an unsanctioned attack on the so-called Noblesse?"

"You—" Maduke started, "Are you _accusing_ me, Dr Crombel?"

"No, I wouldn't dream of it. I just want to clarify—" Crombel was cut off.

"Crombel, you best—"

"Second Elder," the Third Elder piped up between them, "Crombel, please calm yourselves-"

 _"Enough."_

The holograms went quiet. Crombel looked to the obscured visage of the Fist Elder.

The First Elder seemed to shift to one side, regarding something calmly off screen. "Maduke, please explain what you know of Faust's…extracurricular activities. There will be no consequences. If so many of the Elders and our allies had endorsed it, even without my knowledge, it is an act of the Union. It was an initiative that you all took. Speak."

After a short, uncomfortable silence, Maduke answered. "All right. Faust had enacted plans to destroy the Noblesse. This resulted in the capture of his bonded. Faust had imprisoned Frankenstein for unknown reasons in his base." He directed the rest to Crombel "Frankenstein is whom we believe to have destroyed the base."

"Franken…stein," Crombel repeated.

"Faust. Had captured Frankenstein?" came the First's voice. He sounded muffled. "He had held the human Frankenstein for months and failed to execute such a blight on the Union's history?" he said, not much louder.

Crombel and Yuri looked to each other, filing away the news. The First Elder was angry. The tension between the mere holograms was palpable.

"…Never mind," the First said softly. "It only merits to look forward."

"What should we do about Faust, then, Elders?" the Third started.

"I renounce all ties to him," Maduke said. "Currently, I have deployed one of my family to aid in his…next assassination attempt."

"Oh?" Crombel remarked.

"As we speak, Faust should be on his way to Lukedonia herself. He means to murder the Noblesse. I don't believe he has any information of the happenings of the last couple of hours."

"I see," the Third acknowledged.

"So," Crombel piped up, swapping his crossed legs over, "what will you do with Faust? Elders?" Nobody spoke. Crombel smiled. "The Zeroth Elder was your favourite, wasn't he, First Elder?"

Dear Yuri. Yuri had whipped his head around to warn him. Crombel shot him a look, showing there was nothing to be afraid of; there was nothing he couldn't say at these secretive meetings, now. "Elders?"

The First Elder spoke again, his words low and resolute. "Faust has always been an extensive commodity to the Union. However, this decision is marked by his treason. He has withheld information from the Union and withheld our enemy, Frankenstein, and plans concerning the Noblesse from us. His initiatives has resulted in great losses for all of us. As of this moment, Rank Zero, Faust, is now abolished of his position and an enemy of the Union."

Crombel nodded to Yuri, who bowed in delight.

"Second Elder," the First continued, "Do you agree?"

Second Elder paused for a moment. "Yes. I relinquish all to do with his current actions. Including the mission." With a lapse, he nodded to someone off camera. "Including the subordinate I've deployed."

Crombel's eyes widened in amusement. Maduke, the shambles of a werewolf Lord would honestly give up one of his own — one as loyal as Lunark — to regain the First's favour. This was _scandalous._ But Second Elder Maduke had always been a pragmatic man like that. If nothing else, Crombel could commend that.

"And Lagus's noble allies," the Third included, "With Roctis gone, we will have to contact Lagus directly. And Ignes—"

"Ignes is dead," Crombel finished politely. Yuri shifted ever so slightly over for Crombel to see back into the prison. Ignes Kravei, her body gone cold in the prison cell, had not yet been found by the clean up division with the security system's malfunction. Her blood coated the cell floor in a perfect square.

"I see," the Third answered without a beat to lose.

"So it's all settled then? As the situation changes, we will be in touch." Crombel nodded politely.

"Frequently," Third Elder agreed.

"Done," the First Elder spoke. "Send out a hit on Faust. He knows far too much to be allowed to live. All subjects of the Union — put our resources on high alert for Faust."

"Understood."

"Understood, First Elder."

"Of course," Crombel finished.

Without a last pleasantry or goodbye, the holograms flickered off. They were all beyond those, anyway. Yuri put away the hologram device.

"I'll put out the call to your compound and soldiers, Sir."

"Faust is a traitor." Crombel smiled again. "Put it up in large, shiny letters, thank you."

"Yes Sir, Dr Crombel," Yuri beamed.

* * *

Frankenstein used to see well in the dark. Not like the pitch-black-nothing of Dark Spear, but like the unlit earth of the night. He had night vision before that was a thing, able to see dimmed colours and make out shapes with the heightened rods and cones past the vitreous and aqueous humours of his eyes. He found, at least, he could still see in this darkness. But of course it wasn't as before.

The wind on his face felt freeing. The rush past his ears was distracting. The world that unfurled before him was bizarre. Just running across high places, speeding through this world drained of colour, of feeling, not unlike one of those old dreamscapes he'd slept through, he felt his synapses fire into an offbeat rhythm. The peculiarity of familiar structures and buildings and houses looking just enough out of place painted him an outcast in this world.

It felt inconsequential.

Frankenstein skidded to a stop many metres further than he usually might have done. He was rusty. He was clumsy. He lifted his head against the sky and just breathed for a moment. Just looking at the sky felt like at least one thing was right. Everything was as it was supposed to be. The moon might be whiter. The sky might be blacker. Frankenstein drew in a sharp breath and carried on. Tesamu might already know he had broken out. He was gone during his sweep of the facility and Frankenstein couldn't help but feel queasy at his own gut feeling. If he knew Master was in Lukedonia, and he believed him to be secured behind bars...

The Union surely would have discovered his escape by now — _someone_ should have. The enemy lab was trashed and Ignes — Ignes was dead. Between the death he had calculated for himself and this…this was good.

It felt fake.

The smudged blacks and whites and greys were all the same thing. All shades of one colour in dimmed, muted intensities that made everything to him seem like a dreary facade that could shatter — if only he lashed out hard enough. He felt sedated, waltzing though a sombre, baroque painting that seemingly would never cede.

It felt monotonous.

 _Master._

Frankenstein needed to find Raizel. Tesamu said he'd been missing, if that had been the truth at one time. There was nowhere, other than in Korea, where he knew well enough in the human world, and Lukedonia…he didn't know what to think that he'd return to Lukedonia. Frankensteins stomach took a lurch. Of course. He had known there was only one place where Raizel would escape to. Would confine himself back into. He was simply operating on the notion that Raizel was lost; Raizel was operating on the falsity that he was deceased.

He needed to find Raizel.

The greys changed and lightened into the colour of clouds. The greys billowed into arctic whites, stretched out across the skies like lengths of ice slate. The shine of it gleamed into something glaring, like the tint of a glacier when the sun hit it just right. Frankenstein sighed. He realised, finally realised, that he was watching the sunset. But this time no fire or embers demanded his attention. It was slow and steady, grey metals oxidising over with powdery whites, and it came over him slowly. He breathed it in until his insides became warm. The sides of buildings dissolved into an ivory, bone-white. The tops of roof tiles grew pale. He narrowed his eyes. The whiteness hung over the city like a bridal veil.

The sunset, he thought, was just a beautiful as before.

And then he saw the red, bleeding back into his sight like the spill of a ruptured vessel.

Frankenstein wondered if Raizel was seeing this. It occurred to him they hadn't watched a sunrise or sunset like this for a long time. He wanted to — just one more time, perhaps. He took a breath and went on.

* * *

The fate of the world rested upon the shoulders of an eight year old boy.

He came to that conclusion the moment he hit eight. He came to the conclusion, that he was the one to bring nations to it's knees, pull Kings from their thrones and punish those who forsook humanity. When he was just a boy, he understood more than his feeble minded villagers could ever hope to know — he was a genius, but he also knew other things little boys ought _not_ to know. Like bloodshed and betrayal, traitor and treason, those words were constantly on his many-forked tongue. He lied like it was breath, like breathing, and lies kept him alive like a heartbeat.

 _Thump, thump, thump._

He lay his thoughts of espionage and sabotage flattened against the walls of his mind.

 _Thump, thump, thump._

He smiled with reflective cat's eyes, with a barbed halo, and he had more faces than Janus.

 _Thump, thump thump._

Suit of armour forged of deceit, no one could wear a lie like him. No one could ever feel as guilty as he did as a child; and a thousand years after being an eight year old boy, no one could still live, knowing how they were _so_ _guilty._

Amber eyes stared at the green hologram screen projected from the device in his hands. Behind him, Lunark was watching hers, Gradeus as well. A message was being played in a loop until it seemed more a string of words than real sentences with real gravity. The Third Elder's voice repeated over and over:

 _Attention all Union operatives, Rank Zero, Faust, is abolished of his position as an Elder and is now a fugitive of the Union effective immediately._

 _All operatives are put on high alert._

 _All operatives are ordered to kill on sight._

 _All allies to the fugitive are to be killed on sight._

 _Attention all Union operatives, Rank Zero, Faust, is abolished of his position as an Elder and is now a fugitive of the Union effective immediately._

 _All operatives are put on high alert._

 _All operatives are ordered to kill on sight._

 _All allies to the fugitive are to be killed on sight._

 _Attention all Union operatives, Rank Zero, Faust, is abolished of his position as an Elder and is now a fugitive of the Union effective immediately._

Lunark and Faust's announcements blared over each other, tangling into an incoherent mess. Repetitive and robotic, the announcement kept looping as Faust took his eyes off of it and peered over the lake. Lunark had both hands clutched onto it, frowning eyes reading over every line of the hologram.

* * *

Convicted for High Treason —

For withholding information and experiments from the Union For withholding the enemy from the Union For failure to report to the Union For undergoing unsanctioned and uncooperative missions For direct responsibility of the deaths of the Fourth Elder, the Ninth Elder, and the Kravei heir. For indirect responsibility of the shutdown of the '0' compound For indirect responsibility of the mutilation of all workers in the '0' compound For liaising with the renegade Fifth Elder, Lunark, and noble defector Gradeus. All to be disposed of on sight. For—

* * *

The list went on and on. Lunark kept reading it, kept listening to the voice play in a loop.

 _All operatives are ordered to kill on sight._

 _All allies to the fugitive are to be killed on sight._

 _Attention all Union operatives, Rank Zero, Faust, is abolished of his position as an Elder and is now a fugitive of the Union effective immediately._

Gradeus came up behind her, snatching the hologram device out of her hands and slamming it into the floor. The voice splintered apart into nothing. Faust clicked his shut and put it neatly away.

"I…I don't understand," Lunark began, claws manifesting unbidden and clenching at her sides. "Why would I — the Second Elder—"

"—Has used you to keep favour with whatever Elders are left. We're all rebels now," Faust said dryly. "Traitors," he said with an air of humour. How incredibly, profusely ironic. _Traitor._ It felt good to say it out loud. _"Traitor."_

"I…" Colour returned to her face and Lunark dipped her head. She looked more confused than angry.

"It don't care," Gradeus begun. He dragged his feet over the pebbles, cracking his neck as he moved. "I don't give a crap if the Union wants me dead. I'm still waiting for Lagus to make a move already. This was just some down time for me until the Noblesse got involved. They can try kill me," Gradeus rolled back his shoulders and scoffed. "Fighting the Noblesse is enough. Hurry up with your sulking, Faust. I'm not patient."

Tesamu flicked to his left, motioning to the lakeside. Pebbles cracked beneath his feet as he led them away. Gradeus eyed his back. Lunark's claws were shaking, the ends of her hair vibrating hotly. Tesamu suddenly paused.

"What will you do, Lunark?" Tesamu asked.

She looked up with a neutral expression, but her face was red.

"This isn't where the Noblesse lives," she stated. "The data we have locates his house nearer to the city. Why are we here?"

 _Oh._ Tesamu kept looking out over the lake. The sun was just sinking below the horizon. A few boats where tied to the far docks, tiny toy-sized sails bobbing between each other in tune with the rolling lake. The darkening colour of the sky reflected over it like a moving mirror.

So Lunark was going to see this through? She wasn't like Gradeus or Ignes — Lunark had a clan and a Lord to go back to. Misguided was what it was, for her to want to scurry on back to the Second's side; but that would be her priority. She was idealistic, to think that the Second wouldn't drop her the moment she became baggage. But, with the success of this mission, she might even be welcomed back. Not him. _All the secrets that Tesamu had spilled..._ His base, the 0 compound, was compromised and everyone was either dead or dying.

The Professor had escaped.

The Professor was free and at large. He destroyed his entire lab. He was free to regroup with the Noblesse.

Everything had collapsed at once. Without the Union's resources and technology, he had lost his influence and manpower. Even the Second had forsaken someone like Lunark. The Tradio and noble defectors didn't trust him further than sending Gradeus, who had his own, rather _brawny_ interests. A timer had been switched and he had to think fast. The Noblesse had to die tonight. Or the Professor would be _ruined._ His plans would crumble into nothing. He felt like he was stuck in a hour glass, all the sand sifting down the centre. He felt as if he was sliding through that sink hole with no way out, no direction to see, and falling as pressure poured all over him, ready to devour. Where had he gone wrong?

Dark Spear tingled.

"Where the hell are we?! I thought we were going to Lukedonia! Isn't the Noblesse back in the homeland? Isn't that why you got me into this whole ordeal?" Gradeus grimaced and walked to the waters edge.

The faceless weapons finally landed behind them, very late, grooves pressing into the sand as they dropped. Tesamu's back was towards them. Lunark looked to the skies. The sun had fully disappeared.

Gradeus frowned. "Zeroth."

Tesamu didn't indicate if he had heard.

"Zeroth!" he growled. Red eyes flashed from Lunark to Tesamu. "Oi!" Gradeus grimaced, reaching out a hand to bump Tesamu. "Faust!"

Tesamu whirled around, batting away his hand before he could touch him. Gradeus didn't react, only starred daggers at him. "What the hell are we doing? If you're damned lost then I know where Luke—"

"He's here."

Lunark immediately stiffened. Throwing herself out of her stupor, she released her fists and became fully alert.

"What?" Gradeus said irritatedly.

Tesamu straightened up, keeping his eyes fixed on Gradeus as he towered over him with his full height. "I hold Dark Spear now," he said, "and Dark Spear knows the Noblesse. Keep yourself on guard, he's here already." He gave Gradeus a smarmy smile. With one great bound, Tesamu took off into the distance. Lunark pushed off after him, a new drive in her eyes. She followed him. Gradeus twisted his lips, gritting his teeth with ready death threats.

"Zeroth," he launched himself into the sky as well, "You _bas—_ "

A fist bashed into his face. Gradeus balked, unable to finish the sentence. He felt a leg kick into his back. Gradeus was whirling towards the ground, hands clasped around the foot stepped lightly onto his stomach and whom was letting gravity to the rest. He skid all the way from the shallow water to the pebbles, spraying it all into the air as he yelled. When the lake-spray settled, he hacked and cracked an eye open before the surprise in his voice was muffled by a claw at his throat.

"You — M-Mu- _zaka!"_

"Gradeus, right?" Muzaka grinned at him, fangs baring in a cheery look, "The God of War. Or so the nobles say." He picked up his other arm, dragging it slowly above them. "Eat fist, war god."

* * *

 **Notes**

I give you - fake Union political intrigue. The Union is what I call, 'competing factions in a chaotic state revolving around the demigod dictator in the centre, who is the motive force and can influence policy by talking down the apparatus.' Which is how Nazi Germany was run (in my moderate structuralist school-of-thought opinion). There's headcanons I've read where the Union is likened to Nazis and. It's...extremely unsettlingly suiting. (Pm me if you have thoughts holy shoot I can fill a spread sheet with similarities.)

Try looking up 'baroque paintings.' Very grim stuff. But very pretty, still.

Things are going to get weird if Tesamu is the First Elder in canon noblesse. He was supposed to be First Elder in this too! But I thought it would make no sense why he's going off doing this stuff alone etc. So he was made "Zeroth" for mobility and story purposes. (I'll have to write a complementary AU for alternative First Elder picks in case he is canon hahahaha.)

General zargon - 'The man has STYLE' - I'D SAY ;D Franken wasn't actually strong enough to take down Ignes with a Soul Weapon in that scene! Ignes would have thumped him. Luckily she did the only thing that Franken had an edge over her with hahahhahahahahhh. *wipes single tear.

nobody yet - I'm trying my best to get chapters out now, but the block is...urrghhhh

Elims - Even Muzaka, who has not seen Raizel since he bashed his head in, knows that Rai is Not Great at the Directions thing. All your thoughts on Dark Spear are relevant. Yeah, Franken took years and years to master the art of not-dying-by-dark-spear. Tesamu is kinda just winging it at the moment. How will he fare? Especially when this DS knows exactly what they want. But it's a flimsy pact they've made. Frankenstein had to sit in the cell and completely rewire his brain and all this unused aura that was suddenly freed by this parasite being gone. DS was constant strain on him and now he's free it's actually weirdly uncomfortable for him. Though without a soul weapon, he is much weaker... You're very welcome Elims :)

Laryna6 - tbh judging from the current chapters it might be more characteristic to have Franken ~smile~ as he rekt that noble. I need to make sure my Franken remains as violent as earlier chapters. But here's my thoughts - mind wiping/tinkering like that feels morally repugnant to him so that's why he wasn't smiling. The part where he flipped the noble over after he tried to jump him and maybe broke his collar bone in four places though? ~smile~ But yes, little Tesamu was pretty apathetic towards noble violence. Tesamu, while he was working for the Union, had a change of heart during it. He spent the large majority of his time as a spy protecting Frankenstein. It could be said that he was a double-agent! If there was no Tesamu, I imagine that Franken would be getting swamped and jumped at every turn. Under Tesamu's watch, he was kept physically safe. Tesamu was definitely feeding his info to enemies, yes yes yes. I don't know if I put enough emphasis on this but I guess I'll just put it here. I internalise a lot of stuff and assume people just get it but lol no. No I need to explain lol. The most useful things Tesamu leaked to the Union was during his early years. Later on Tesamu consciously started feeding the Union bullshit: useless things, failed things, flawed things, while he kept all the good stuff to himself. The soul weapon blueprints was something he gave over to the Union because hells-yeah, more weapons to destroy them nobles, because Franken explained it as a 'noble-killing weapon.' He was strategic. Years in, his superiors were all like, 'your information is useless now, we're pulling the operation' and he was like UM NOT YET. Pulling the operation, taking him away would mean, in Tesamu's eyes, the Professor's doom. That's why he was doing his best to push the date backwards. But that was all he could do. The Union was still going to be inevitable and he tried to warn him when he became aware there was no more time left. What I'm trying and maybe failing to say is that, yes, he would be the only one who really knew what Franken was _truly_ capable of.

The thing about Tesamu though, is that he really is a product of Franken in that time of his life. Franken, before he ever set foot on Lukedonia, _hated_ nobles. He hated nobles just as much as Tesamu or even more so. His hate of nobles absolutely validated Tesamu. Tesamu grew up with a curriculum of 'hate nobles, they suck,' right from Franken. Franken changed on Lukedonia, but Tesamu went on to let this fester and it's an immovable part of him now. The difference is that Franken hated nobles because he loved humanity, but Tesamu hated nobles just for the sake of hating nobles - humanity was not worth more than getting back at nobles. He thinks that saving Franken = saving humanity, because Franken was at the peak. He's supposed to be the one to lead and elevate humanity. Tesamu's convinced himself.

I'm glad you caught the 'sweet tooth' thing it's my theory of why Rai needs eighteen spoons of sugar in his tea. It makes it more palatable. Because it makes it taste like Franken. Thank you for reviewing :')

Guest - Hope you enjoy!

Peasant - You must be happy. I clink glasses with you over Ignes's late demise *clink. Everybody seems to be moving towards each other...

If you find any horrible typos please let me know. I looked through this once. Hopefully I didn't repeat any stuff I've already said. Thanks for reading.

\- earl


	34. Pit Stop

Dark Spear was not gentle.

Tesamu didn't think they'd be — _hell —_ he'd damn well known it would be the opposite, but when he let them take over, when he surrendered his golden aura, they were not gentle. He could feel them even now, the millions of them flowing with vigour, _his vigour,_ with every step he took, every breath he breathed _—_ he did not live just for himself anymore.

He might have thought, just at the start, that it could be glorious. How powerful would that make you feel, to carry a legion in your bones? To will garrisons with the barest of a thought? For commanding Dark Spear was to direct lightning, to fuse with them was to be equal with Olympus. He was wrong. He knew that they were painful but he had no idea how they were pitiful. When their screeches died down between the hours of three to six in the morning and each individual voice seemed clearer. He walked the earth anew, this time carrying all their burdens, Atlas's penance lifted onto the shoulders of another. They were victims. He was a last refuge for the emaciated and unavenged, made of the stuff of mausoleums. But no burning smoky incense, no fruit offerings or kowtows were enough to appease them. Their screeches died down. Sometime in the early hours, they sounded like they were crying.

Within the sealed crypts on his body, they made his breath poison and his spit venom. He felt filthy all the time, but not because of them. He was doing something unclean, tarnishing sacred things when keeping them tucked within his body. He understood he was a living tomb housing a savage civil war that still raged on far, far beyond it's time; beyond it's own mortality. Where the ghosts refused to lay down, they wouldn't refuse a fight. How easy would it be to join them? To just collapse in his cobblestone mind and let them take him through the cracks. Tesamu had to shut them away like the Professor did. He realised the Professor didn't shut them away because he was weak or damaged beyond repair, but because he was strong. If Tesamu didn't lock each rattling door, he'd join them.

They did not let him rest easy. Dark Spear whispered to Tesamu. He caught himself wondering what they had to say, what incredible stories they had to tell instead of what they could do or what they could destroy. But there was only one thing on a million minds and they never forgot to bid him a proper goodnight. **_We Curse You._** Tesamu had to bite down hard, bite back his shame, their humiliation, and hold against their hatred. They were deadlocked like this, but never cease-fired. He promised them again and again and again: _Cadis Etrama di Raizel will die Cadis Etrama di Raizel will die._

Because he'd die before admitting he'd lied to them.

That, maybe, he'd lied to himself.

* * *

Pit Stop

He arrived there, grey house amid foggy patches and he really felt like he was in some kind of film-noir set from the forties. It was a boring, unassuming sort of monochrome that he thought no one would have glanced at twice if it weren't for the makeshift door. It was jet black, but that just made him squirm — what colour was it in actuality? Certainly one that didn't match his house, and how bright was it?

After scanning the neighbourhood one last time, Frankenstein jumped from a roof and landed on the balls of his feet. From then on he outwardly dropped his cautiousness. Walking up to his house, he paused at the mailbox. He couldn't stifle the urge to fall back into routine, stalling for time he wasn't sure why he wanted to put off. Frankenstein opened the box and skimmed through the letters. School news letters, a bank few statements, unpaid bills, _oh-_

 _Mr Lee,_

 _Your tickets for the Korean National Ballet have arrived._

Frankenstein counted seven tickets total and smiled. Then, without much provocation, he cringed and admitted to himself that the singular thought of getting home had clouded his judgement. He had no idea what the rest of the world thought of him — the school, the neighbours and children. Frankenstein pushed those thoughts away for now, those were something to deal with later. When he'd neared the house he'd made a point to flare his aura only to remember that it was wholly different, and that he would have probably been treated as an enemy combatant. But no one had come out to meet him with their soul weapons and transformations either. No one was home. He could manage to sense that much as he stacked the letters back into the box for now.

The passcode keyboard was removed along with the original door, _thanks to his good senses!_ This new one made use of a lock and key. There must not have been much time for the household to repair it properly before they had to leave. Frankenstein shuddered. Where was the rest of the household? Seira and Regis must have returned to Lukedonia where Master undoubtedly was. Ignes had surely believed so when they were touching minds. But what about Takeo, Tao and M-21? With Regis and Seira? Or in Seoul? Or had they just...gone? The Union would be after them — if both the Noblesse and his bonded were out of the picture, then they would be prime targets. He had safe houses and he had over-dinner contingency plans, but he did not, for reasons, discuss with the household what to do in the event of his death. He was not totally sure whether that was a good or bad idea even in the current climate. The Noblesse and his... _bonded?_ Frankenstein's jaw tightened. With one calculated sideways kick, he bashed the door open.

His eyes widened at the mess. The furniture lay in haphazard positions all over the room as if someone had only bothered to turn each piece back upright, but didn't shift it back into its proper place. The room was left almost exactly as it was when he threw a damned tantrum. Frankenstein ran a hand over his face, breathing slowly. It was too risky to turn on the lights. He hurried down the corridor, finding the hidden entrance to the elevator and going down to the lowest floor. Frankenstein reached out into the dark and adjusted his eyes. At least, with monochrome vision, he still had some sort of night vision when he tweaked it a bit.

He slowed down, drafting his breath into steady beat before he moved forward, passing all the computers and monitors. It felt like he was going from the modern day to centuries back: back down the spiral steps, back into fire-ravaged tunnel. He set his eyes to the end of the corridor, pausing between the two rooms. The one on the right had been his. The empty one on the left once belonged to Tesamu. A soft smile played on his lips. He entered Tesamu's room again. Of course, this place was left exactly as it was too, but the damage Dark Spear had done was irreversible. This place would soon crumble and cave in. Frankenstein ambled to the far wall of the room and pried his fingers into the stone. For a second, he winced, wondering whether he'd remembered wrong after all this time. Singed earth fell away as he applied pressure. A compartment opened up. Frankenstein scooped up a crumbling jewellery box.

" _Heh._ All this time and something like this still survives." Frankenstein looped the necklace around his neck and thumbed the pendant. It was light and cool to the touch.

Frankenstein took another look around the barren room. This was a bunker hideout after all, a place to run away to and hide while storms blew over and fires went out. When he returned to Korea after those many, many years, he'd convinced himself that he didn't come back to this place out of nostalgia. Far from it. A secure, ready-built underground system sitting untouched and unknown near the heart of the city? It was only practical to rebuild his life here. It was only right that he'd build his school near here.

But when he came back to this godforsaken place, he couldn't help himself from tracing his hands along the wall the way he'd seen Tesamu used to do. He flipped through old scrolls, touching his fingers over where Tesamu had jot down a note, doodled a sketch. He sat in a rotting chair, pouring over the desk where he'd first penned down his vision for Dark Spear. A soul weapon - a new future for humans. He'd crossed the corridor and stood in the spot where he'd looked down at Tesamu, tucked him into a bed that was not there anymore. He was glad that the Union had stormed the place and thrown out everything they had owned, if he hadn't burnt it down first. But he still couldn't live with himself — he couldn't walk and breathe just above the place where he'd thought up an abomination, condemned millions to their deaths, he couldn't stand it when the place was supposed to be for the apprentice he gave everything to.

So Frankenstein boarded up his dirty scrolls, old records and musty rooms far away beneath him, locked it all up and tossed away the key by making himself forget. All those physic powers he'd perfected fighting mutants and nobles culminated in a little seal on his own mind. He made himself forget that this awful place was located right under his nose. But now, standing in this room — that was where Takeo stood. Where Takeo walked calmly over purple flames to politely ask him to stop throwing a fit. There was where the children screamed at him to get out to get to safety. Frankenstein looked back with a faint snicker at himself. He had rebuilt his life in this place even after he'd made himself forget, because this was the one place he might have had the audacity to call 'home.' Home had never been a place for him. Not in Burgundi or Europe or the mansion in Lukedonia, not really even this house. Home was people. He found a home in Tesamu, and he came here. He needed to go home right now.

Home, for centuries, had always been Raizel.

This place only started to matter again after he'd reunited with Raizel.

This place became something worth protecting when they'd filled it with the children.

Frankenstein smiled as he closed the trapdoor behind him and made his way up the lift and stopped at the lab. He spent the remaining time chomping down on nonperishable food he'd stored for about a decade, all without much protest from his tastebuds. Not when he'd been on the tube for what had been months and he needed strength to fight. Afterwards, Frankenstein changed into a fresh suit and long bowtie. He eyed himself in the mirror, watching his reflection through a seemingly different lens. He looked like something out of a newspaper article, all poised and proper, even though he was dressing himself to break bones. Feeling more like himself, he thought back to the mission at hand. Frankenstein was hardly out the door when a sound rung through multiple rooms, beeping and office-like. Frankenstein whipped around, startled yet battle-ready, frantic eyes darting around.

 _Ring, ring!_

A brow lifted. He frowned. Had someone paid for the phone bill? Or perhaps paid in advance? But he was supposed to be the school principal, private calls shouldn't be possible.

 _Ring, ring!_

It was the middle of the night. And who would call this place on the landline? Frankenstein stiffened, aura swelling against his body, pushing like a cocoon ready to burst. If Master had gone missing months ago, and the children had left this place…

 _Ring, ring!_

Frankenstein eyed the blinking phone.

 _Ring, ring!_

He picked up the receiver, carefully brushing back his hair as he raised it to his head. Frankenstein looked dead forward into the dark — he was in no mood for more fun and games.

"Who is this?"

"Hel-hello?"

"Who is this calling?

"I…er…"

"I have no more patience for your kind and your petty mind games. You listen to me. Did you think you could hold me for a moment longer when I — when I'm _me?"_

"Woah! Hey, man that's just, I think I got—"

"—Relay it to your superiors or whatever kind of filth you work with, for or under, and tell them that I'll personally come knocking, that I hope they understand that I will _demolish_ everything they work and stand for. I am not one to make empty threats. I will find every single one of you and gri _nd_ —"

"CHAIRMAN LEE?!"

"—you into…"

"…"

"…"

" _Is, is that the Chairman? What the, give it here!_ — No! No snatching, I've got it. _Ugh_ Principal? _Principal Lee?!_ "

"…Hello Shinwoo, Ikhan."

It was Shinwoo's hyper active voice that answered. "OH MY GOSH YOU'RE BACK? AHAHA — Hey Principal! Uhhh — how was your conference in America?"

Frankenstein slid a hand over his face in the dimness, mushing it into his widening grin despite himself. He leaned his head back and slapped his back against a wall. The pause was too long for Shinwoo's liking.

"Principal? Sorry, I get this is pretty late but we were really hoping for Tao hyung to pick up." Shuffling noises muffled the sound, and Shinwoo whispered across the line, "just between me and you…and Ikhan here — _Hey Principal! Mu_ h _— T_ ao hyung sleeps really late and we've just drank three cans of 'V' _— Wha, Shin-WOO! We can't tell him that!?"_

Frankenstein leaned against the wall, resting the back of his head against it, receiver glued to his ear. "Alright…you can both calm down now. Shinwoo, there should be a button on the phone labelled, 'speaker.' Do me a favour and click it."

"Do I get extra credit if I do?"

"…"

"Ok, I'm pressing."

The beep of a button sounded.

"How was America, Principal Lee?!"

Frankenstein chuckled into the phone. "It was…hot, at this time of the year. Imagine having to be stuck in suits all day in that heat."

"Ooh," Shinwoo shivered.

"Damn. Glad you're back though! I mean, hopefully the conference was helpful?"

Frankenstein could almost see Ikhan shift his glasses seriously.

"Not much help in the end. But I'm afraid it's not stuff I can chat to you over my landline. What are you calling for, Shinwoo, Ikhan." He couldn't help but hear a note of fondness in his own voice.

It sounded as if Shinwoo had grabbed the phone back from Ikhan. "Well, I hope it's alright with you, but we were just calling to ask if Rai was ok…Is Rai _ok?"_

Frankenstein's smile wiped off his face. "Your classmate is…he's…uh,"

"Oh you don't have to explain, Principal Lee, we know Rai's sick, and that he went back to his home country for treatment, right?" Shinwoo's voice sounded slow and heavy. "We know he doesn't really want to talk about it, so we don't ask, but we know. I mean, from what the hyungs told us, it sounded as if you weren't going to come back so soon. You came back for Rai, right? That must mean he's landing in Korea soon, right?!" the hopeful jingle in his words made Frankenstein touch a hand to his mouth.

Frankenstein made a short sighing noise blow though the receiver. "Yes. He _is_ sick at the moment. But don't worry — you're right, Shinwoo. He's coming home very soon."

"Good! Because I can't keep writing up two sets of notes, tell him it's killing my hand! This is 200% more work than I usually do!"

"Shinwoo! You can't say that to the PRINCIPAL either!"

"Sorry."

Frankenstein found himself laughing a little, and then stopped immediately. He couldn't condone his school kids for drinking three cans of V and calling Master while highly caffeinated.

"That's…I'm going to do you a favour now, Shinwoo, and pretend I didn't hear any of that. And you're going to pretend you didn't hear any of my…outburst. Deal?" Frankenstein said, waving a hand into the air.

Ikhan answered, "You mean, the part where you said…mind games…filth…you'll personally come knocking and demolish everything…Are, are you ok? Chairman? Who were you expecting a call from?"

Frankenstein froze, mind buzzing for a plausible answer.

"Telemarketers."

"…"

"…"

"They're getting very ruthless these days, don't you think?"

"…"

"…"

"Don't you two have school tomorrow?"

It seemed as if Ikhan had managed to wrestle the phone off of Shinwoo, and now his voice blared loudly through. Frankenstein yanked the phone further from him.

"Ye-yeah, Chairman Lee, sorry about calling you so late in the night. Please don't blame Tao hyung…"

"No," Frankenstein echoed.

"Ok, we'll leave you to it then. Welcome back anyhow! _Later, Principal!"_ two voices rambled down the line.

"It's good to be back. Good night, Ikhan, Shinwoo."

He could listened to them whisper excitedly while lowering the phone.

"And Shinwoo?" he quickly piped up in the last moment.

"Yea?" Shinwoo's voice returned, obnoxiously loud.

"Three cans of 'V' is _pushing it_ ," Frankenstein said.

"…"

"Oh. Ok I'll—"

 _Fffffftzz. Beep._

The line snapped dead.

Ikhan must have decided he didn't want to wait for Shinwoo after class for detention. Frankenstein placed the phone on the floor and sat there for a while. Not thinking or planning, just resting, the voices of the children still buzzing in his ears. Takeo, Tao, M-21, Regis and Seira. Of course, Shinwoo, Yuna, Ikhan and Suyi too… they had all burrowed their influence deep beyond his walls where he couldn't keep his heart stone like he needed to. But he didn't need to, not when there was Raizel. He'd walking past his untouched room before, seeing that it seemed to be the only part of the place that was kept...neat. It reminded Frankenstein that he knew he had a lot of reasons to keep ticking.

He made a beeline map in his head to Lukedonia. Frankenstein's first priority, right this second, was to find Raizel. Well, now that he had made himself somewhat presentable. He jumped out the nearest window with a smile on his face.

* * *

Both of the Union's greatest failures came back to bite them in the back. The failed werewolf Lord and the half-broken Noblesse.

Tesamu had swivelled in mid-air, using aura to hold his position as his eyes finally found the disturbance. From the air, Lunark and Tesamu watched silver hair fly as Muzaka beat Gradeus between his fists.

"Lord Muzaka?" Lunark whispered. She glanced to Tesamu with an unsure look.

"It looks like the Noblesse is here," he said.

Lunark exhaled intently.

"Go."

She turned to Tesamu fully, staring. "You're going to take him alone?"

"Help Gradeus. He's strong, but Muzaka isn't just any werewolf." Tesamu nodded to his side. "You've got better chance taking him down together. I'll be right there."

And with that, Tesamu disappeared down to the lakeside. Lunark's hands were shaking and she scowled at herself. She wasn't bothered by the cold. She was not afraid of fighting, especially not now when she'd nothing to lose and everything to gain back. But this was _Muzaka._ She swallowed her fear and readied herself: Muzaka wasn't important. Muzaka did not have any relation to her anymore. The only way to be accepted back into her clan and by her Lord was to make this operation a success. She steeled herself to follow Lord Maduke's orders, flinging herself into the fray as Gradeus called for his soul weapon.

* * *

Tesamu ignored the blasts behind him, the boom of axe against werewolf claw causing an ugly ring to reverberate. Instead, he trailed his eyes up the peripheries of the lakeside, watching the waves shudder and break over the wooden columns. Frothing precipitate tipped each sharp churn of the swells before it rolled into a calm again. Each crash of the waves sent water spitting metres-high until it rained down over Tesamu. Tesamu wiped two droplets off his cheek. Decades of choppy waters had corroded the pillars of the docks.

A single lamplight lightened the end of the dock. Where light glazed the current the waters were transparent — like looking through turquoise stones, or clear jades. At the ebb of each wave, water casted shadows over water for the second it lurched up. It gleamed and dimmed, paled and darkened as it caught and lost the light at the surface. Its language was rolling, fluid, fluent and always changing. The blue-green lake couldn't decide what it should remain like. The squabble floated underneath the swell, full of conflict. It would never stop speaking. Just like Dark Spear within him.

 ** _Follow us._**

Tesamu let them guide him down the docks, footsteps creaking against the wood.

 ** _This way._**

He traced his hand on the roughness of the wooden railing before it ran out.

 ** _Down here._**

Purple began to leak from him like the lake, copying it's leaps and bounds. His tainted energy enveloped the lamp light as he reached it, choking out the luminance.

 ** _Look._**

Tesamu stepped onto the pier. He walked down the planks, amber stare reaching out in greeting to the still figure at the end. He stopped. Waiting for something. Cadis Etrama di Raizel turned around, meeting his eyes. They stood there on the pier far out on the lake. Suddenly, Tesamu felt like Raizel was just watching him. Just searching for something he must have seen before, something specific, with that look. Distant yet striking. Tesamu didn't like it, but he stayed quiet.

 ** _Flick you wrist, Tesamu._**

The sadness on his face shrouded his surroundings. Even the water looked solemn by his side.

Tesamu strained a smile, a warning before he flicked his wrist.

* * *

Notes

Finally got that comic relief out hahahhahahahahaha the M-21 and 24 telemarketer call was one of the most hilarious things in noblesse. Looks like party A has met party B, finally.

I have never drank a can of 'V' in my life but I imagine three per person is enough to be hugely caffeinated. (Because I didn't want them to be PG-13 and not drinking bahahahaha.)

Elims - :3 That was a really last moment development, actually, having Tesamu be kicked out of the Union. It wasn't something he planned either. He's now a fugitive to basically every character in noblesse. Good job, Tesamu, good job.

General Zargon - Thank you! Nahh there's not much more to do with Crombel anymore, you've got to place your Crombel death bets on canon XD

Nobody yet - Thank you!

QoB13 - Unless I die beforehand this fic is going to finish if it takes forty more years. And thank you very much!

Laryna - Took a while, but here it is.

Next three chapters are going to be fun :)


	35. Ides of March

hi.

* * *

 **Ides of March**

Purple burst from his fingertips, setting his arms on fire. But Tesamu pushed it down as it attempted to leap up to his face, forcing Dark Spear to calm. They wouldn't stay still for much longer. They _hungered_.

"Tesamu."

Tesamu looked up. Raizel had only moved a step, avoiding the dark projection he'd thrown at him. His quiet, calm demeanour angered Tesamu, the way that regarded his mortal enemy like he was an unsightly inconvenience. He should be startled, shaken, _humiliated_ at what Tesamu had done, had forcibly _taken_ from him, but he was civil and reserved as he waited on the dock. Tesamu sneered, waving his hand to strike that still face. A beam emitted, cutting an edge of the pier clean off. Raizel had stepped to the opposite side, not dignifying the shot with a change in expression. "I want to speak to you."

"I've nothing to say to you."

He pulled back, took a huff and bolted up to Raizel. The hits he landed sounded like cannons blaring, cracking the old wood beneath them and tossing up waves to spill upon it. Raizel blocked him with one hand — _not even one hand, two fingers_ — causing layers of red to peel back at each purple-laced hit. "I thought I knew you, once."

"Did you?" Dark Spear nagged behind his ears, barely tucked inside his head, and whispered, **_Did he?_**

Tesamu lunged, almost a directionless lashing-out, clawing at Raizel as he passed him. Raizel swiped a hand as they crossed paths, bathing his vision in red. He evaded and landed shakily behind him. Raizel simply turned around, unfazed. Tesamu's eyes flickered to the cuts at his side. He'd only noticed them because Dark Spear had jumped to lap at them. Tesamu cracked his knuckles at his sides as Raizel went on.

"I thought that you were kind and curious and courageous. You were young, but very curious and smart. And immensely strong. You went through so many terrible things."

Tesamu scoffed, leaning back. "You think you know me because of what you've seen through him? What he's told you? Is that it?"

Raizel raised his voice, face impassive. "I thought that you were someone who wanted to help people, Tesamu."

Tesamu frowned, clenching his jaw. "Is there a reason for all this chatter?"

Raizel nodded. "You are right. I do not know the person before me. Because that person is nothing like the one that Frankenstein cherished." He stated it, a sure, stark fact. "The moment he heard of your apparent demise in Lukedonia all those years ago, he went berserk. It was the only time I'd ever seen him like that. Frankenstein never stopped mourning you after he thought you had deceased. He had never forgotten. And yet…" Raizel looked up, blank face looking over Tesamu. " _You_ are not the one he mourned."

Tesamu shook from the inside. He bit his the inside of his lip, trying to keep himself level when he was closer to toppling at any moment from the _hunger._

"Frankenstein mourned for his apprentice. He mourned for his dear Tesamu," Raizel remarked, and Tesamu didn't know what he was getting at — if he thought for the slightest moment that _words_ could possibly convince him not to break every bone in his body, top-down, in alphabetical order.

A hand flew to Tesamu's mouth, covering his face. He chuckled into it, scornful and mocking. "I don't care what you think of me. I don't care about what the world thinks of me. Truthfully," he said, gesturing with his hands, splaying them out, "I don't care about what _he_ thinks of me!" Tesamu shrugged, lips quirking up once. "I _am_ someone who wants to help people, Rai. That's why I'm here. That's what I'm inches away from doing."

Raizel's brow creased, something heavy sinking into them. "I just want to know one thing, Tesamu."

Tesamu blinked, amused. "What, pray tell?"

"Why did you murder Frankenstein?"

"That's the same thing the noble Lord said to me."

 _"Why?"_ Raizel repeated.

Tesamu thought for a moment. "You didn't deserve him."

Unknowingly, reflexively, Tesamu stepped back. When he realised he has done so, he was surprised. All the time, the Professor taught him well; he didn't lift his eyes from his enemy, kept note of all his openings like a register. But the tremor in his knuckles and the rising, spreading twinge in his chest gave him one warning — his body wanted to step back. The next moment, his instincts were screaming to get away. Dark Spear went quiet. The hunger died down. Dark Spear was waiting and Tesamu thought, those unholy things knew Cadis Etrama di Raizel's power better than he did despite all the time he studied him. Analysed him. Perhaps he wanted to fall back because all that time he dedicated to knowing the Noblesse, he didn't truly _know_. Every fight with the Union recorded. Every faint brush with his powers. There were no meters high enough and no aura testers that could stand a hundred metres near him and not break. He'd stopped trying to chart him a long time ago. He could feel his presence push around him. Cadis Etrama di Raizel's power was exhilarating.

"I'd be despicable to lie over tea. I told you, didn't I? He's not what I'm after. I'm after _you._ "

A swivelling, flocking surge, and all the built-up, pent up grudges began to gnaw and seep and gush through Tesamu's body, coursing in anticipation. Or fear. Inside, whether it was him or not, Tesamu was cowering at his power and yet hungry to put an end to this all. He breathed in deeply, feeling the air thin around him, the pressure around him change. The Noblesse stood there, eyes on Tesamu but also far away on another plane. He arched his neck, shut his eyes.

"...Don't deserve him. Just because of that?" Raizel said, and his voice was choked and ragged. "I cannot," he strained, "for the life of me, understand."

Cadis Etrama di Raizel's power grew.

Tesamu gritted his teeth before letting go of frivolous civilities and finally shouting out. "You can't understand! You'll never understand no matter how much you think you care for him! You're the Noblesse!"

Raizel lifted his head, something not like anger, but _rage_ changing his expression, twisting it into a dark imitation of his noble face. And Tesamu smiled despite himself, having finally broken his calm.

"It confounds me, how you can hurt those you hold dear."

Tesamu didn't answer him. Tesamu's body wanted to obey the pull towards the Noblesse. Despite his refusal to back down, he wasn't risking any missteps. Retracting, Tesamu shook himself, launching into midair to avoid the wave that would influence nearby minds. The Noblesse looked up, keeping Tesamu within sight. Without another beat, Raizel ascended with ease to hover close to him.

He said three words — commanded it with all the authority to his name.

 **"Give _them_ back."**

A short hesitation.

And a gentle pulse.

Tesamu felt the blood droplets from his cuts flick away from his skin, leaving him dry. Red pervaded the air, entrenching both him and Dark Spear in a thicket of mist. The iron-sweet tang hit all his senses at once, and he willed himself not to gasp. Blood pervaded the air.

"Tesamu," Raizel's voice projected over the distance, making him feel the dread beneath his lungs, "Dark Spear is not yours to take."

Power emanated like heat. With one raise of a hand, the Noblesse lay siege to the sky. Red powers spilled its wrath upon the open eye of the storm, chasing away spirit and cloud. Raizel beat back Dark Spear's hideous mixture of heaven. Tesamu could only watch as his dark projections fell in a languid attempt to strike him, but less and less reached as Dark Spear's medium was swept away. He readied the spear in his hands, feeling the burn of the flames as it formed. An encasing, brimful feeling overcame him, and when he opened his eyes, the world was clad in vermillion.

Tesamu looked on with wide eyes.

The night sky had been cut off, the waves below taken away from beneath his feet. He was trapped in the large expanse of a blood field, a perfect, moving sphere.

* * *

"…Goodbye, Professor."

The door whirred shut.

He felt the Professor's blast of aura through the confines of the cell as he walked away. The ground shuddered. Dust fluttered from the ceiling.

The moment he was alone, the strength drained from his body and he let his legs buckle. Tesamu crouched down, pushed his palms hard against his burning eyes, forcibly stopping the tears from flowing. He might have let out a couple of sobs before he stood up. Wiped his eyes. And waited for his usual facade to settle back onto his face as he remembered. He could cry and he could yell. But he would never give up on his Professor, and he would never give up on making his tormentor suffer and pay. Nothing, and he knew nothing, not the Union, not his creations or power or even the spear, was more important to him than Frankenstein.

* * *

 ** _We curse you._**

Tesamu grimaced. He felt Dark Spear's bite tearing away at another chunk of himself he couldn't see, unable to jerk back in reflex or yelp in pain. Inside, he began to bubble and boil, filling up with mismatched molars and milk teeth, sharpened canines and rotten incisors; Dark Spear pushed aside his entrails, making room for only them. Though the rage remained. The fury stayed. Tesamu became filled with blackened tooth and tongue, and all of a sudden, he felt starved.

 ** _Let us eat._**

A famine doused over him, and he had never felt so bone-hungry and thirsty in his entire, long life. He needed to consume but it wasn't his stomach that needed attention. Tesamu opened his dry mouth to let out a cry, and only a strangled sound came out. He began to shake his head twitchily, feverishly, but he couldn't shake off the craze. He thought he was going mad, Dark Spear was going to eat him alive into nothing and there was not a thing he could do, one little him twisted around their million lanky fingers.

 ** _Let us…_**

Until he saw Raizel. Raizel, hovering there with his hands at his side, the rage put aside for a still face full of concern and not moving to attack. He was trying to kill Tesamu, wasn't he? _What a joke._ Why would Cadis Etrama di Raizel look at him like that? How could he possibly understand what he was feeling right now? He hated him so much.

 _No,_ Tesamu answered. **_Let us kill._**

Tesamu reigned in his ghouls and ignited. Flames engulfed his body in a skyward bonfire, making the place grow humid, incinerating the red mist around him. Storm clouds rolled in choppy waves outside, fighting back the control of the heavens. The Monster parried Raizel's power.

 ** _Yes._**

It was the Monster that charged.

 ** _Kill._**

The Monster thrust a claw in Raizel's direction. Raizel blocked him with a shield of red, forcing him back. With a sideways jolt, Raizel crashed him into the moving walls of the blood sphere, grazing his entire left body. The Monster lurched up and hit again, operating on reflex as Raizel's red power coiled and restrained him, slowed and blocked him — he pulled himself free before striking again. Twisting his waist in midair, the Monster didn't waste time between attacks, throwing arms and legs and aura beams in quick, pin-point succession until his purple aura blurred. Raizel breathed in and spread his fingers. A gust of red erupted from him, spreading out to hit the ends of blood sphere and beating back the Monster as it did.

The Monster cracked open his mouth, set his jaw, and lunged again. Raizel lifted another hand, collecting another pocket of red energy before he sent it swirling into the Monster again. He blew him backwards, crashing him headfirst into the grating, crimson walls again. He looked up, shook, and moved again.

The Monster fought without flinching, without shock or feeling — surface pain was nothing to a man on fire. Raizel shifted, readying himself for another blast just as the Monster reached out his hand, grabbing at an invisible something. Raizel glared, forcing another wave to manifest. But it was slower, sluggish, collecting in smaller divisions before it merged unlike the large swells that flushed before. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate and his teeth were grit so hard they hurt.

The Monster forged the spear out of flames, and in one well-aimed raise, he flung it towards Raizel.

Raizel gasped for air. His powers shuddered. The spear cut through his crimson. In one breathless movement, in a blur of black, the spear was wedged between Raizel's shaking fingers. He distanced the inches between the spear and his neck, wrenching it backward when—

The Monster swiped up from beneath him, spear still sizzling in his hold. Raizel was knocked from the centre of the sphere. Raizel barely stopped himself from raking against the walls, holding up the spear at arms length. His head was dizzy, his insides were sloshing from side to side and the Monster hovered in the centre, bottom-less eyes just staring. His hand was burning, the spear was charring his right hand and yet he didn't let go. He didn't let go. Raizel bunched himself up and directed another bolt of red at the Monster — but it convulsed before it reached him.

He lingered there a moment, the Monster eyeing Raizel with malice. Then he looked away, turning his attentions to the confines of the blood sphere. He blast a purple beam into the walls, strong enough to split it's momentum for a moment. A hole opened up, grating apart before it flowed over and mends again, but the Monster blasted again. The blood sphere opened and mended, opened and mended.

Raizel's concentration was split. The spear in Raizel's hand hauled, pushing up it's purple plague. It dug deep, dug its poison-thorns into his blood stream until it's blackness spread around his body. And he was the Noblesse, his psychic powers amplifying the sudden intrusion to a horrifying effect: Raizel could feel the spear calling, chanting, whispering their agony; he could count every single wayward soul clutched in his hand if he tried hard enough.

 ** _We curse you. We curse you. We curse you. We curse you, Cadiss Etrama di Raiiizel. We curse—_**

Raizel shuddered, flinching but unable to let go, not _trying_ to let go.

 ** _—you…The Professor…_**

His eyes widened in fear.

 ** _…curses you._**

Raizel cried out, affected by the spear's voice and touch — and though he'd known it for a long time, it didn't change a thing. It pierced him like a shrill voice wracking though dizzy skull, wrapping a mangy, convoluted mass around his arm. He heard them hum, heard them sing, felt their hate for him sink into his body like teeth into skin. Raizel wanted to deafen himself, shut his mind off even if it left him vulnerable because he couldn't help himself from looking into them. He was searching for a needle in black water that he didn't want to see and yet—

He wanted to hear Frankenstein.

 ** _We curse you…and you would let us?_**

 ** _Cadis Etrama di Raizel?_**

He bit back a sob.

"You have cursed me from the very beginning. You said you cursed Frankenstein, therefore, you have always cursed me."

The Monster was charging and crashing against the walls, rebounding and picking himself up before he threw his everything against the sealed domains of the Noblesse. Tesamu was still there — he knew, all inside the blood sphere was governed by the Noblesse. He had weakened control outside of it. The blood sphere began to shudder and thin, breaking up like bug-bitten leaves until the blood couldn't stretch over the holes anymore. Its shape fell apart. Blood sphere began to dissipate.

The Monster swivelled and darted to Raizel.

Raizel jumped and weilded the double-bladed spear before him, parrying his attack. Dark Spear met with its other part, causing the flames to infect Raizel's remaining left arm.

 _"Nghhh…"_

If Frankenstein cursed him, he needed to hear it himself.

He needed to hear whatever flimsy shard of Frankenstein was left.

 ** _Useless…_**

 ** _Die now, Cadis Etrama di Raizel._**

 _But no._

He had a duty to Frankenstein. He had a duty to Dark Spear. He had a sentence for Tesamu.

 ** _Curse you…_**

"Many curse me. I am not afraid of your curses. I am not afraid of your nightmares," Raizel said. "What more is there to be afraid of? I've lived through my worst nightmare already, Tesamu…You disgust me."

He banished the picture of the little boy. He brushed away Dark Spear's threats. He would wait to hear Frankenstein.

"Now fight me," Raizel stated.

* * *

Tao's gasp crackled into the speaker. "What the hell is that?"

" 'The-hell-is-that' is Raizel-nim," said M-21. "Look," he pointed to the fight going on in the sky. "He's fighting someone."

"Yes, but is anyone else very…distraught that blood sphere is breaking?" Tao asked in a surprisingly level tone. They all knew what conjuring the sphere could do to him. "I mean, he might need backup, but what are our chances of survival if we get too near?"

M-21 was pushed back and knocked aside by Regis as he burst in on the control cabin. "Seira and I can feel it — it's Raizel-nim," he swallowed, "and Dark Spear."

"Say, Rael," Tao said, blinking at back at them all, "When did your brother say he was going to come help?"

Rael didn't exactly ignore him. He looked dumbstruck at the display of power blaring all too close, shaking the aircraft even from this distance. They all looked at the display for a moment, scared and spellbound by red and the deep, yawning rumbles. No one said it, but nobody could deny its beauty.

"What do we do?" Takeo asked no one in particular. He looked to Seira. "We're here, so how do we help him?"

Seira stood up and stared out. Her eyes flashed with every shockwave that collided with the plane and clenched her fist. "If Raizel-nim cannot keep himself in the air, then we all go out there." She smiled. "If his height falters, we fight."

"If, or when?" M-21 asked.

Sorrow slipped onto Seira's face. Tao looked back past the pilot's seat to face everyone. "It doesn't matter if or when, if he can take down Tesamu, then all is good and well. We rush him back home and make him sleep. If not, we all pounce Tesamu at once!" Tao growled, clenching the microphone in his hand.

"Tao," Takeo began, squinting at the distance.

"With Seira and Rael — two Clan Leaders here, the RK can hold off Tesamu while-"

"Tao!" Takeo called out, hands flitting up in anguish.

The second Tao turned his head, Seira clenched her hands on his shoulders and pulled him out of his seat like he was made of cotton.

A figure crashed into the aircraft, shattering glass all over the control panel and wedging himself the window. Seira got up from shielding Tao. Takeo and M-21 collected themselves. Regis and Rael gawped. The RK took turns eyeing one another as multiple beeping sounds swept though the aircraft. Everything on the the panel began to blink.

"Well. At least there's no Boss to get murdered by," Tao said, pulling his combat cables from under the mess. "We don't need to pay for the plane."

Rael stepped forward, poking a finger into the figure's back. The figure stirred, more glass showered down, and a low groan came from him. Rael gripped him unceremoniously by the hair and tugged him the rest of the way through the window.

"Rael?!" Seira called over the rush of wind.

"What? If it's an enemy then we should take care of him before he causes more trouble!"

"Rael, stop," Seira said.

"I—"

"That's the former Werewolf Lord…the esteemed Muzaka-nim."

Regis, M-21 and Takeo pressed their faces in to see.

"Very esteemed," M-21 agreed, deadpan.

All of a sudden, Muzaka's eyes blinked open and he hurried to sit up, crushing the control panel. The beeping got louder and Muzaka looked around in confusion.

"What the hell are you — War god — GET OUT OF SKY, IT'S NOT SAFE!" And with that, he jumped out of the shattered window. Muzaka disappeared from their sight, leaving the cold air to whirl around...only to be beat down onto the nose of the aircraft not a moment later. The rest of the glass shook down, littering over braced heads. When the household registered what had happened, Gradeus was holding Messad above his head, left hand pinning Muzaka to the plane.

"GRAH!" Muzaka twisted his arms beneath Gradeus, flinging the noble's arm out of the way. Gradeus yelled out, veins popping, completely consumed by fight, and bought down the axe with one arm. Muzaka reached forward, disregarding Messad as he lunged to strike Gradeus's neck. It occurred to them that risking losing an arm was quite appropriate for a counter, from Muzaka's point of view.

The air swivelled around them and for a second, Gradeus was deeply confused with the feeling of another soul weapon drawing. _"Who?!"_

"Rael Kertia," Rael announced, crouched over and holding back Messad by hooking it with Grandia. "Brother of the Kertia Clan Leader." He heaved, unbalancing Gradeus and with a quick swipe of the blade. Gradeus reacted. Muzaka took the opening to kick Gradeus off the plane. "You…" And anger flickered into hateful inconvenience as Gradeus wobbled over the side, hands squeaking against fibreglass as failed to hold on. He fell over the edge.

Muzaka took a breath of air to grin at Rael, but his eyes fell on the glint of his soul weapon. "But wait — I saw — I met — your brother has…I am so confused." He shook his head, shrugging at them before suddenly remembering what he was doing and growled. "You guys can't help Raizel. He doesn't want help, you understand? He needs to do this or he'll never rest well in a day of his life. Get your human flying machine to safety!"

"Why are you fighting Gradeus?!" Regis shouted over the sound. "He's one of the traitors!"

"They're on Tesamu's side!"

" _They're?"_ Seira swept her hair to one side and trailed her eyes over the terrain. "Faust has bought reinforcements. Muzaka is supporting Raizel-nim by fighting Gradeus, amongst others."

Muzaka's pupils dilated as he realised his mistake. "Don't follow and don't try to help Raizel — he's going all out for goodness sake!" Muzaka got up and plunged his hand into the plane, clawing off an entire section of the nose.

"What the— WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Tao shouted, horrified.

"Stay out of this fight if you don't want a face full of axe!"

Muzaka dove off the tip of the plane just as the plane began to tilt and drop. Takeo, M-21 and Regis felt incredibly light for the split second before their feet lifted off the floor of the plane. There was no time for anything.

 _"Death scythe."_

The sear of metal rang upon their ears as the plane began to split down the middle. It was Seira, twisting in midair and raking Death Scythe down the centre and kicking one half of the plane out for the others to move. M-21 transformed, using the debris to propel away from the wreckage. Takeo and Tao followed his example, pushing off from the remaining parts of the plane and heading towards the direction Muzaka had gone. They landed under the red flashes of the sky.

Seira landed delicately on the footpath. M-21 and Regis ruined the grassy patch off the concrete. Tao dropped from the trees, leaving behind a tangle of cables in them. And Takeo dropped even more unceremoniously from those, followed by the heavy clatter of his weapons and ammunitions. Rael scoffed.

They looked at each other, seeing if anyone would drop. But no one was hurt. The sounds of huffing filled up the deserted place.

"Who wants a face full of axe?" M-21 asked casually. He stuck his thumb in Muzaka's direction. "Up for it, Regis?"

"Are you doubting my ability to take an axe to the face? Is that what you're saying, M-21?" Regis balled his hands into fists.

" _Yeah_ , M-21," Tao said animatedly. He coiled his cables around his forearms and adjusted his tie. "What are you implying here? Because I'm fancying axe to the face right this moment."

"…Ditto…" Takeo lugged his firearms case off his back and immediately began assembling.

"All you morons, I swear, what kind of fighters deliberately want a direct hit from a soul weapon?"

Seira took one look at Rael's insulted face, swung Death Scythe over her shoulder, and began walking in the direction M-21 was pointing at. "I do." The household followed after her, picking up the pace.

Rael frowned in confusion, trying to make sense of it. He went after them, steeling himself to fight in the name of the Noblesse. Regis and those modified humans — they weren't so bad, if they were going to run after Gradeus and Muzaka without a half-thought.

* * *

The effect was immediate.

Tesamu and Dark Spear took the defensive. Dark spear coiled back, giving Tesamu a clear conscience and ebbing at his neck as they readied themselves for the next attack. But Tesamu grew quiet.

Where Frankenstein held back a hurricane inside him, Raizel _was_ a hurricane. But that could not do him justice. He was otherworldly. A galaxy of colliding stars, his power was too big, too harsh, too overbearing. Rearing his head to the heavens, Tesamu understood why he liked to stay small and quiet. His weaponising breaths heightened, his all-seeing eyes brightened, his maelstrom fingers lifted — Raizel hovered from the earth and Tesamu could only watch as the world turned red.

It was sensuous, a dense kind of feeling that quashed all around him, and Tesamu could feel the rhythm of the Noblesse's power move and sway like fault lines shifting, could feel his own body beat in his ballad. His sight reddened with blood. With one simple motion, Raizel brushed it all away, making the world became crisp again. Just like that.

Tesamu was terrified.

Power collected up behind Raizel, creating a virulent swell of red. A wave of something stifled all — Tesamu stopped huffing for a second, ceased to think when the unearthly sense hit him. He felt it before he saw it, rippling through the air and creating a vacuum of a disconcerting something. _Can't breathe. Can't breathe._ Without calling for them, Dark Spear withed closer, shielding him from that which couldn't be shielded from. And in that moment, Dark Spear made sure he didn't need to breathe anymore. Tesamu watched Raizel glow.

Wings bursted from his back.

He was in awe for a few clandestine seconds and couldn't even feel too bad about it. They were as lovely as they were destructive, catching the moonlight just enough to show the entire spectrum of reds — rose red to rich samite, glassy diamonds and the bloodiest ruby he had ever seen. They were as beautiful as they were lethal, both alluring and repelling the way a natural disaster was. With a roll of his shoulders, they clenched and spread — growing in size and majesty until Tesamu could make out every scale-like gleam on them, the way the blood aura flowed and reformed at the tips, rolling and changing like the sifting sands of a kaleidoscope.

Blood wobbled from the Noblesse's mouth as he drew in a breath, summoning _more._ He looked strained, like he was on the verge of falling off the very razor-edge — too high up, too long a way to fall. And a second set of wings burst forth, warping around him before they peeled back, revealing more streaks of red rolling down his chin. He blinked his eyes and he was crying without the sadness rooted deep inside like Tesamu had seen before. Raizel smiled. And his chest heaved as a third set manifested with the force of nature, hanging behind him like a colossus.

Tesamu wanted to admire it.

His red eyes flaming, his six wings unfurling, a monstrous, damning seraphim of blood — they stirred riptides through the sky like dye, made thunderclap with ease as they dragged. They glided through the breathless air, the very night shuddering in their brilliance and giving way to their luminous span. They were chaos reigned in by a single noble — part of him, yet not really part of him. They were fathomless, merciless unlike the way Cadis Etrama di Raizel was; when they were borne back into the world from his feeble body, Tesamu was looking upon glory and death. Spilt star stuff and the colour of a sharp, relentless wrath — without sorrow, without forgiveness, a harbinger of righteousness. They were as holy as they were vengeful. Like watching waves roll from the bottom of the ocean, carrying anything to crash and break.

And they felt blithe — in that the sheer magnitude of their powers didn't warrant the slightest tinge of hesitation, so absolute that nothing else in this world could possibly, plausibly challenge them. And they hung behind him in the vast blitheness of it all, crimsoned with the blood of the Noblesse that created them. Power that made Clan Leaders cower. Power that could make even the Lord conform.

And the soul weapon noble did nothing else but hide in a house with a human?

It was as pitiful as it was grossly _lucky._

Cadis Etrama di Raizel carried himself with dignity and grace and charm and power, with a history of strife in his eyes, and sacrosanct wings that ignited all the time. And feathers forged of half-a-dozen soul pieces, as wavering as moving tectonics and fault lines: Cadis Etrama di Raizel was made for obliteration.

And Tesamu felt grandiose just watching the Noblesse's wings stretch and flex, gliding through the air slowly, without weight or drag, but still creating ripples in the sky. They moved, a pair rising above Raizel's head, piercing the gloom of the clouds; a pair curling forward, half-wrapping him in a circle; the last pair reaching out downwards, guarding him. Raizel lifted his own hands, hovering them before Tesamu in a battle stance. But something faltered. When Raizel spasmed and rocked forward, a hand flitting to cover his mouth, Tesamu knew he hadn't miscalculated. This was as good a chance as he was ever going to get. His wings may be god-like, but Raizel was walking himself straight to his death. He was exhausting himself. Tesamu didn't need to deal damage if this was what he'd come up with, he doubted whether the noblesse could keep this up for two measly minutes.

Cadis Etrama di Raizel's power was boundless. And it was that boundlessness that would eat him up.

Raizel swiped his wings forward, cutting the skies with a beam. The purple on Tesamu's skin flared again. He let Dark Spar careen him out of the way. Another strike shot forward. Tesamu banked left. All three of Raizel's wings pushed and pulled at once, forcing Tesamu back with blasts of pressure and aura all around him. Tesamu weaved around the tides of aura, letting the waves wash over him when there was no possible way to dodge. Dark Spear flowed through him, knitting the essence of his body back together as it broke apart at Raizel's strikes.

* * *

The noir set that blended in his sight diverged. Frankenstein skidded to an abrupt stop, tripped on something, and bashed headfirst into the ground.

 _"Ugh."_

He picked himself up, rubbing at his arms. The hairs on the back of his neck stood upright. A breeze blew over, blowing his hair out of his eyes and tousling the ends of his neck ribbon behind him. It was the smell that caught him off guard. He hovered a hand out before bringing it before him and squinting. A slight moisture stuck to his fingers, settled in the ridges of his fingerprints.

Frankenstein opened his mouth and deeply breathed in the night air. It tasted of blood.

* * *

Notes

Chapter 5 was The Omen Bringer. And this chapter is called the Ides of March. I studied Julius Caesar in school and this is the result.

'"…Goodbye, Professor." The door whirred shut,' section is from near the end of Chapter 29 from Tesamu's pov.

I'm been very busy lately and apologise for the big gaps. I agonise a lot over word choices...it's a bit shaky but there's no use hanging onto this anymore. Thank you so much for your kind comments, always, always, always.


	36. Mighty Long Fall

When he closed his eyes and focused on one thing too long, he remembered things. Jumbled thoughts, images and sensations in the distance. Bits and pieces of a whole, the edge of chipped glass that glinted far too brightly not to see or a fragment of a feeling that flitted through his chest. Frankenstein, aboard a ship and hunched over the rickety, wooden hull, water splashing around him and salt in the air. He was completely drenched, his hair strewn and slicked over his face. Frankenstein, taking the hand of a maiden and leading them to the ballroom floor — all grand, all sparkling, droves of smiling people twirling around him and wine glasses clinking.

Frankenstein, enraged, his jaws snapping indignantly as Dark Spear's fire crawled up his arms, making a show of himself to a frenzied crowd. Frankenstein, shutting his eyes hard amidst the centre of a sandstorm. Then the same scene flashed before his eyes, the same cracked wall, same dust piling in the corner. And then a girl — warm and kind. The most vivid thing wasn't a sight, it was a feeling. She'd gifted him something small, and it was as if a weight had been lifted off Raizel's own chest in that coffin. He'd felt happy.

He remembered this part especially: the sound of coins clinking in a bowl, low heels clacking against marble, mosaic floors. And more intricately, columns rising like spires to strike the arched roof, and the dawn streaking patterns of the stained glass window on the ground as he walked down the aisle. People were scattered about the large and airy place. It was only when he sat down on one of the long oaken seats that Raizel realised this was Frankenstein, with his hands knit together and head bowed low. He remembered the rest hazily though he knew it was important — had to be important if it was Frankenstein. All he could put a finger on was the utter and ineffable feeling of being so lost. And a yearning that could hurt. And smother. And hope.

Nobles did not dream. Involuntary successions of images and thoughts did not occur in noble psychology, who had full, conscious control over their bodies and minds. But alone in the coffin, Raizel slept on those images.

* * *

 **Mighty long fall**

In the midst of an ugly fight, Lunark was the only one that noticed that the House of the Noblesse had arrived in its entirety: the young Loyard Clean Leader, a Kertia, a fledgling Landegre, the sniper human, strategist human, and the human that resembled her own people. A few short minutes ago, the logical and centred thing to do would be to engage with the enemies to this operation — the enemies of the Second Elder. Even if the Second Elder had wiped his hands clean of this operation without pulling Lunark out. But at present, Lunark did not engage. The House of the Noblesse stopped at the edge of the clearing staring at the carnage, Lunark at the opposite side staring at the same thing.

The wide clearing before them was scattered with disfigured, faceless weapons. Parts of robotic limbs and blades were stuck into the ground, blown clean apart by brute force. It would be like the bodies of the weapons the Noblesse's group had seen littered in the aftermath of that fight — what Frankenstein had fought during his last moments. What Lunark had fought alongside. Though a different model; the limbs of these could only shift into one type of blade — perhaps a prototype of the ones Faust had used against Frankenstein.

At first glance the parts had a glossiness to them, like a paint job of a new car. Gleaming white and mechanic. Some part of her had always assumed they were just that: made of nuts and bolts, controlled with a remote control with veins made of electric cables. Incapable of thinking, only animated for following orders; so nothing like what the Eighth Elder was. But then she saw the bleeding. Last Lunark checked, robots did not bleed.

She peered past Muzaka and Gradeus's fight to the House of the Noblesse and saw the same sort of reckoning in them. The faceless weapons she fought with before, the weapons Faust so easily deployed and discarded — they used to be...they were the remains of humans. Faust's weapons were _humans._

The moment she understood that, Lunark had not jumped in to fight. She only watched as the implications of it sunk in. Faust using and throwing away his own people for his own ends. She tried not to liken it to how the Second Elder had ordered her to work under Faust and then forsake her for dead. Despite being an Elder, she didn't have the clearance to know she was being sent on a suicide mission. Lunark shook her head — her first loyalty was to her clan and her Lord; if she made this mission successful there was a chance to return to them both.

But there was something sickening knowing that she'd fought along these parodies of humans that had their fates sealed when Faust woke them from their tubes. Being human had made them fodder. What differentiated her from those former humans lying dead and decapitated on the floor? Sent to their loyal deaths by their creator and master. Maybe she was less than that, for fodder had a purpose, and her purpose had been fulfilled when the Second Elder had forsaken her as a show of goodwill to the Union. What if it wasn't her on this mission, what if it was Kentas? Would the outcome still have been the same? Against all odds, that thought was reassuring in some way — that it was her on this convoluted mission and not Kentas.

A screech put Lunark's attention back on the fight.

In the middle of the broken pieces and bordered by craters was Muzaka, snarling at the horde of what was left of the weapons. The household was still taking in the scene when Gradeus suddenly broke from the ranks of the weapons, pushing them out of the way until they broke to pounce Muzaka from behind. Muzaka reacted instantly, haunching and throwing around Gradeus's smaller form off of him. Then the weapons surrounding Muzaka closed in all at once as Gradeus wrangled himself from the fray to collect himself.

Messad glowed with eagerness as Gradeus's blood flowed off from the hilt to the axe, infusing it with more power. He was once called the 'War God' for his paradoxical powers, powers that grew stronger with every bit of damage dealt. They'd been at each other's throats for a while, Gradeus tirelessly jumping back in with his ever-growing powers and Muzaka holding him down with his unlimited stamina.

Lunark's brows furrowed. Muzaka had taken multiple direct hits that should have proven lethal on anyone else, even other werewolves whose regeneration couldn't match that of his. They'd healed up in half a minute after a gallon of blood was lost. There were still a dozen or so of the faceless weapons left. She looked down at her bloodied, shaking claws and spat on the ground. All this time had past and Muzaka did not seem to want to fight her.

When Gradeus held Muzaka's attention before, Lunark had put away her personal qualms and hit Muzaka with everything she had. She'd raked her claws across his body and Muzaka spun around to reciprocate. When he saw who his attacker was, Muzaka had flinched. He furled his claws away and hit her in the stomach, wheeling her back.

"It's Lunark, isn't it?"

Lunark watched Muzaka's face bash into the flat side of Gradeus's axe. Muzaka spun around, took Gradeus by the wrist, and chucked him through four trees. "I betrayed our family no more than Raizel betrayed the nobles," he huffed, chest heaving. "Which was none! By the way!"

Lunark was well aware the Noblesse was accused betraying the nobles due to the Union's orchestration. She had not been allowed to know Muzaka had been in secret stasis in all that time that the Noblesse had gone missing. And now he had come to aid the Noblesse? She did not understand.

Another faceless weapon was wrenched apart by Muzaka. Occupied again, this was as good a time to attack as any. Lunark came at him from the front. She bounded forward, twisted her body at the last second and lashed out at Muzaka's side. The faceless weapons immediately came to her aid as she sliced into him. Muzaka turned and threw the lighter half of the weapon at her before beating back the others again. Why did he not fight back?

"Lunark!" Gradeus used the flat side of Messad to bat her away. Lunark dug her claw into the ground, forcing herself to a quick stop. She threw her head up at him, growling.

Gradeus rolled his eyes. "If you're not going to hit hard then get out of the way!"

In that very same moment, Muzaka's foot collided with his neck and bowled Gradeus into the ground with three weapons still attached, by the blade in their arms, into his shoulder blade. "Better concentrate, War God!"

There was a short moment where Muzaka winced and Gradeus chopped into his leg.

"MUZAKA!" Gradeus slashed through the air, hacking at nothing as Muzaka pulled back for once. New skin immediately erupted from the wound, healing back seamlessly before Gradeus knocked the bone of his kneecap awry. Lunark clenched her jaw as the faceless weapons piled atop of Muzaka.

Gradeus swung up Messad again, eyes flaming and yelling as he bought it down.

Lunark was never loyal to the Union, she was loyal to the Second Elder and only the Second Elder. In a clan of proud warriors, those warriors were expected to die for their Lord. Lunark, all of a sudden, or maybe this was a lengthy rebellion finally running its course — Lunark thought it didn't feel right to have to die for someone who'd sacrifice their own like a frivolity. So who _really_ betrayed who?

 _There was a difference between them:_ those faceless human weapons could not think for themselves, but Lunark could.

"Lunark?" Muzaka muttered in the aftermath of a blast that shook the grounds as Gradeus had beat down on him. Lunark pushed her crossed claws against Messad's hilt, pushing the soul weapon back, shielding Muzaka in the dust. Gradeus's eyes bulged with a palpable anger.

"You… _traitor_ …" he strained, voice quivering with rage. _What did he care?_ Gradeus was a hazard to beings with minimal intelligence. Perhaps he truly did not know that Lunark had not sold her soul to Faust or the Union. It had always been the Second Elder. She was going to get a mouthful from Kentas if she ever made it out of this.

"A little hypocritical, aren't we, Gradeus?" Lunark smirked. With a surge of power, she knocked Messad out of range with her left hand and struck Gradeus with her right. "We both heard that Union announcement play twenty or thirty odd times. If you had an ounce of allegiance to the Union you would have used your axe for proper purposes and found your way to Faust's neck!"

Gradeus pulled back from her stab. He shifted to lean his weight from one leg to the other, regarded the gaping wound for a moment. Shaking his head, he picked up Messad.

Lunark flicked her claws coated with Gradeus's blood, broadcasting it.

"Ppfffft!" Gradues haunched and stuck Messad into the floor again just to laugh. He clapped a hand over his mouth, holding his stomach and then pointed at Lunark with wild eyes. "Lunark, you just threw away everything in a — _just wait till your precious Second Elder hears of this,"_ he choked out, half-delirious from the rush of his own aura.

Lunark swallowed at that and accepted it.

"Yeah?" Muzaka's said gruffly.

Gradeus got up and, in a flash of speed, cut the decapitated head of a faceless weapon in two that was whirling towards him. His flaming eyes slitted down into a predatory glare.

Still poised in a throwing position, Muzaka's lips curled upwards. "First, you have to get back to tattle to the Second Elder, don'tcha?" Muzaka said, dusting his hands off. "And Second, you have to be alive for that to happen, right?"

Gradeus marched forward. Suddenly, Messad flew back into his hand. Relishing in the looks on their faces, Gradeus flipped his axe to slice up his own body. Blood spider-webbed over Messad and Gradeus's aura gushed again.

Muzaka raised his brows. "Right, Lunark?" He beamed at her. Fangs glinting.

Lunark extracted her claws again. "I'm only doing this because I dislike following Faust's orders and Gradeus…"

Muzaka lifted a brow.

"…Is Gradeus." She sighed. Lunark bounded forward, dealing punches to Gradeus before something cold and sharp pierced her shoulder, her hip, her arm. The faceless weapons began to swamp her now, and she couldn't tug all of them off at once. "GUH-" Gradeus moved away for Muzaka, but Lunark pulled him back by the wrist.

When her sight became completely obstructed, only the clang of Messad falling onto the floor and Gradeus freeing himself from her hold make some sort of sense. A yell growled from somewhere and a blast shot past her shoulder. It was enough for Lunark to collect a beam into her hand and fire off the other weapons off of her.

"Over here, War God!" Muzaka zipped forward to meet Gradeus again.

Lunark kept hitting back the faceless weapons. She didn't bother to count how many there were when she left the base, but now it seemed far too many.

At her side, the noble war god and ex-werewolf leader clashed. She didn't know how it would go — what with Muzaka-nim's accelerated healing abilities and Gradeus's weird party trick. The more he got injured, the more powerful he got. But then, Muzaka-nim could go on fighting forever with his power.

Muzaka _-nim?_

Lunark stopped another faceless weapon from getting to him before—"LORD MUZAKA!"

Muzaka flinched to the side. Her warning gave it away to Gradeus as well, and he ducked just in time for a black scythe to cleave off a few locks of hair. They fluttered to the floor where he stood and Muzaka skidded back with Messad poised to his chest.

"Loyard girl," Gradeus sneered.

"Loyard Clan Leader?!" Muzaka corrected without an arm, deeply impressed. As his ligaments coiled out from the arm-stump he wiped the pleasant expression off his face. "I told you guys not to come."

"The Kertia do not flee from the likes of an axe to the face!" Rael announced as he drew Grandia.

"It is my duty as Clan Leader to aid the Noblesse." Seira plucked the scythe tip from the ground and craned it over her shoulder. "And besides. The Noblesse should not have to bother himself with the likes of you."

Seira swooped down on Gradeus, swinging Death Scythe through the air. Gradeus dodged, pulling Messad away from Muzaka's neck. Death Scythe swooped past Muzaka, putting an inch-long cut under his rib. The force of its power kept going, forcing Gradeus to guard his forearm against Messad and shield behind it.

 _"I really like Raizel's friends,"_ Lunark heard Muzaka say. Muzaka ran a hand over his head, shook whatever debris had landed on him and shrugged at Lunark. "Right, Lunark?"

"Frankenstein tried to murder me," she replied.

"Yeah. Frankenstein's like that," Muzaka pursed his lips.

"It happens, don't take it personally," Tao grinned.

 _"Can confirm,"_ Takeo's voice said, cracking from Tao's radio chip.

Muzaka turned around. "I'm sorry, who the heck are you?"

"Me? Raizel's friend?" Tao answered. "I mean…officially, his school security guard." Tao put his hand on his hips and puffed out his chest. "But unofficially, you can call us the RK. We're _Raizel's knights."_ Lunark watched Tao turn to his peers, ginning enthusiastically. They all stared at him blankly. "C'mon guys, give us some credibility here..."

Seira politely cleared her throat, "Tao, since the incident in Lukedonia, the RK has been recognised by all the Clan Leaders. Gejutel K Landegre, Rajak Kertia, myself and the Lord, for example."

"Can I just get a hell yeah? The RK is an established knighthood in Lukedonia. How much more official can we get?" Tao piped up.

"Hell yeah," Muzaka quickly said when no one answered him.

"Lord Muzaka, your left," Lunark stated.

He shifted to the right. Gradeus swung a blade into nothing. Muzaka had moved again, snagging around to clutch at his throat. Gradeus spluttered, striking a fist up from under Muzaka's hold. Muzaka's elbow cracked and let go without choice. So instead, he threw his head forward to knock against Gradeus's. It was just as quaint that Gradeus had the same idea. Muzaka fell back against Tao, and Gradeus to Lunark.

Lunark just got a hold onto Gradeus before Seira landed beside her, quick and light, scythe coming at them. Able to decapitate them both in one go.

"DON'T!" Muzaka cried and Tao let go of him, "She's on our side!"

And as soon as Seira stopped, though her scythe unable to stop from the momentum, Seira slammed her soul weapon into the ground instead. The delay gave Gradeus the opportunity to take hold of Lunark behind him and fling her over his shoulders. Lunark spat blood and caught Gradeus's two fists before they hit her. "You'll regret this, traitor!" he hissed. Gradeus's was outnumbered and all his anger was turned on her, now.

"Coming from a traitor yourself, how's that faring for you?" Lunark bit back, Gradeus's fists digging into her palms.

"Traitor of a traitor!" he hissed.

Lunark frowned. "Listen, a coup d'etat that worked is legitimate!"

They wrestled, Lunark rolling atop Gradeus and Gradeus rolling out from under her and her kicking him off. They tangled, clawing each other and leaving no openings for the others to jump in without harming Lunark, and Lunark steeled herself to surge a beam.

"UGH, MESSAD!" Suddenly, Messad separated from the dirt a few metres away, and began flying towards Gradeus.

"Aim for his eyes, Lunark!" Muzaka pounced forward, claws scraping against Messad as he grasped it out of the air and held on to stop it from reaching Gradeus. But Messed was still being pulled to Gradeus, hovering forward ever so slightly and pulling Muzaka with it. He planted his feet into the ground and heaved it back. "GET HIM!"

Lunark was deadlocked with Gradeus, him having rolled atop of her again and she was fast losing strength to hold back the War God's fists.

"NOW!" someone shouted.

The zing of bullets that was let loose flew far too close to her, shots sounding from nowhere as they ricocheted off random objects to fly right through Gradeus. Gradeus flinched at the ninth shot and Lunark bent in one of his elbows, pushing him off. Seira cut her scythe between them, wedging it into the dirt before kicking off the ground. Using the hilt as a pivot, she swept herself up to kick Gradeus square in the jaw. When he recovered Seira was still in the air; more shots fired, ricocheting off of Death Scythe and launching into Gradeus again.

"Who the HELL?!"

Lunark looked to the trees, eyes shifting around. Even if the sniper was supposed to be on her side, being out in the open made her far too exposed.

"Here."

Gradeus's flaming eyes fell on Tao, who was grinning. Without comment, Gradeus began to march towards him, fists clenching and unclenching in anger and fury.

Lunark bounded forward. What was the Clan Leader doing? The human was about to die.

"Riiiiight. There." Tao flashed a smirk, eyes hidden under his bangs.

Lunark stopped. Gradeus stopped. Tao threw up his arms, exposing the coils of cables around his wrists. With a great lurch, they tangled around Gradeus. Tao took a tug, a serious expression weighing down his features and darkening his face, nodding to nothing as he motioned to the sniper.

"Please stay back, Lunark."

Light flashed and electricity buzzed, yet Lunark didn't look away from Gradeus — she watched him getting fried by the Noblesse's school security guard. She didn't know how much damage it'll really do, but Gradeus was yelling all the same.

When the electricity stopped, Gradeus looked up, licking his lips at Tao. Tao's eyes widened — not in shock, but in sheer, benign acknowledgement. "Look out, Raizel's traitor."

Gradeus looked behind him, immediately getting a face full of Messad's flat side. Muzaka was huffing heavily, wielding a noble soul weapon that didn't obey him. "War God! Pick on someone your own size!"

"None of you are my size!" Gradeus screeched back. He knee'd Muzaka again, two heads shorter than him, and with a simple flick of his arm, commanded Messad to come. Messad jerked out of Muzaka's hand and landed back in Gradeus's.

"Can someone fill me in?" M-21 dropped down before Tao and Seira. "Did you screw up the plan? Why haven't you guys taken out the noble already?"

"What?" Takeo interjected as he landed beside them, his sniper rifle perched over his shoulder, "You think it's easy to take down the guy's whose moniker is _'War God'?_ He gets stronger every time we deal damage to him or he loses blood."

"What have you been doing?" Tao said. "Moseying around with those... _anti-clan leader weapons?_ " he opted to say.

It only occurred to Lunark now that Faust's faceless weapons had all mysteriously disappeared from the grounds, expect for a clutter of broken pieces.

"They're not even anti-clan leader weapons!" He hesitated. "But they were hard, anyway…" M-21 said much more quietly.

"Well, you sure took your time," Tao shrugged it off. There was no saving the human weapons. They were far beyond saving.

"Say that to my _face_ , you." Rael stepped out of the dark, Grandia clutched in each hand and veins popping on his forehead. Regis stepped out behind him, nodding to Seira.

Tao blanked his face and played dumb. Seira sighed, making a slight blush redden Rael's face. He pulled back, horrified in eliciting her annoyance.

"Ok. So. By the authority bestowed on me — us — by Seira's explanation, Raizel's Knights will hereby, officially, totally, _crush you,_ " Tao took one step to the side and nudged Seira, _"it is 'Gradeus,' right?"_

"What 'explanation?'" M-21 asked monotonously. Now Muzaka ambled forward, alarming M-21 as he slouched to whisper in his ear, claw politely covering his mouth to explain how Seira had said the RK were recognised and legitimate. He wan't even sure where Muzaka had fit into whole equation, but didn't question it.

"Anyway," Regis began to say, tilting his chin into the air, "Tao is right. We're not here to _apprehe_ nd you, traitor Gradeus." He smiled, stroke of pride in his voice. He turned to the household. "Let's do this for the Principal."

Lunark watched as Raizel's Knights all went rigid. A moment of silence fell, one so heavy and reverent that she didn't even dare break it. Didn't want to. Frankenstein — he meant a lot to these people, didn't he? Despite what the Union had always painted him as, what she'd seen him do — he had given everything himself for these people to the bitter end.

"What the hell did I ever do to that punk human?" Gradeus sneered. He was huffing, letting his wounds heal over and his aura to double. Any more damage, and he wouldn't be able to get stronger without the side effects showing. Fatigue bit into the back of him, threatening to spill if he let this continue. He cracked his neck, "Tch!"

"Nothing," Takeo said. "But you were part of the plot to betray Sir Raizel. That's reason enough."

Gradeus ran at them all. All eight of them. Clan leaders and Werewolves and nobles and enhanced humans, armed to the teeth and fuelled by determination and ruthlessness.

Gradeus swung Messad out of control, whirling around like a beast and getting thrown around by Muzaka, Lunark. Rael's daggers stabbed into him and Tao's electricity crackled. Bullets flew and M-21 and Seira cut into him. Gradeus bounded around his enemies, taking more damage than he could regenerate and channel back into power.

When Seira finally crouched beneath Lunark's attack and swiped Death scythe up to take Gradeus's left arm, it didn't heal back. Grades stumbled and fell. "Loyard, you—" he struggled for breath. The orange fire of his eyes smouldered, going out for a second, and then faltered. His wounds ceased to heal.

"YAH!" Regis sprinted forward, only to be stopped by Muzaka.

"Wait, Landegre!" he let go of Regis as he frowned his befuddlement. "Look at him. He's not healing anymore."

"Yes? That's why I was going to keep punching him?"

"What are you trying to do, Werewolf?" Rael shot him a look not unlike Regis's.

"Hey! He's still the Previous Werewolf Lord, kid!" Lunark snapped.

Muzaka threw up his hands, "I'm saying we should stop ganging up on him and you guys should let me finish! You know you kind of interrupted on our fight, right? Now that there's no more 'getting stronger as you hit him,' can I finish hitting him?"

"Why do you get to hit him to the end?" Rael squinted.

"I say we all hit him at once," M-21 said without emotion. "That's fair."

Seira pursed her lips, thinking for a moment. "What Lord Muzaka means to say is, one on one battles are deemed the most honourable."

A silence followed.

"Was betraying Sir Raizel honourable?" Regis questioned.

Tao and Takeo looked at each other. M-21 rolled his eyes. Seira patted Regis on the shoulder. Lunark lifted a brow to Muzaka.

"You know what," Muzaka said, "You guys hit him. You've earned it. Go crazy."

The park side was completely destroyed when they were done.

* * *

"Tesamu," M-21 said first, panting, "Where is he? Where's Sir Raizel?"

Sounds of another fight boomed above the lake. "We gotta go there," M-21 said, turning around. "We're done here. He's had enough fun for himself," he said morbidly. M-21 began trekking towards the lake. All of a sudden, Muzaka appeared in front of him, expression a little confused. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Where do you think we're going?" M-21 reacted instantly.

Muzaka regarded him for a second. The others quickly gathered behind M-21. "It looks like you're going to get yourself killed between their fight."

Regis jumped in front of M-21, harshly and accidentally bumping him back. "Sir Muzaka," he said, putting up a hand to stop him, "This isn't up for debate. We're officially recognised in Lukedonia as Sir Raizel's Knights. It's our job to defend him!" he fumed, and then added snidely, "M-21 isn't dying anywhere, anytime soon."

Then Rael stepped in front of Regis. "Previous Werewolf Lord or not — the objective word is 'previous.' Besides, you have no authority here! I say you get out of the way and we'll get on with aiding the Noblesse."

Rael began to walk past Muzaka. Muzaka reached behind him as he past, immediately and easily dragging him right back.

"YOU—"

"You're not letting us help Raizel-nim?" Takeo stated, almost in disbelief.

Muzaka looked to the ground, going serious. "Listen to me, listen to me. I'm here as his friend and I'm doing this on his request. I stop everything that tries to get close to him during his fight: friend or foe. This is his fight and he needs it more than anything."

The household exchanged looks, horror creeping into their faces. "That's a dumbass request and you know it!" Tao said.

"It doesn't matter what you all think," Muzaka said, abruptly changing. He narrowed his eyes, the silver in them gliding over each of them, Lunark backing him. "Raizel doesn't want help. Besides," Muzaka turned to look at the fight. "There's no way he will lose."

* * *

It did not feel like righteousness, nor duty or divinity: doing the deed felt ugly and dirty and harsh. It was the Noblesse that had left Lukedonia, who had waited at the docks and carefully choosen his words to face his opponent. It was the Noblesse that was bound by duty to vanquish this enemy that threatened everything that was slipping out of his hands.

But as soon as he summoned his power and felt his wings brush against the sky, Raizel had come to fight as just himself.

It was hard to separate duty and desire now, and maybe it couldn't really be separated if this was for Frankenstein. Maybe it was unprofessional of him to fight as he desired for that frivolous, selfish thing called revenge, but then again if the Noblesse of this world had been anyone else, it would have been considered justice. Raizel had let himself feel hate and anger. Now it veiled everything, packing the earthen structures inside him tighter, heavier, impenetrable, and the sheer force of his power was ripping away at his insides in a way that it had not being forced to do but for eight hundred and twenty years ago.

Not far away, Tesamu shot his arm into the air preparing for another attack. Though it was Raizel who controlled the domain now, a few purple bolts shot down at his command. Raizel batted them away easily before Tesamu charged again.

Raizel seemed stationary as he moved his arms to direct direct his attacks. Two wings lifted above his head, shielding him from intervals of falling projectiles; two wings whisked and beat, dealing damage to Tesamu and shattering his shields; the last two lowered at his side, guarding him and throwing off aura attacks coming from all directions. Tesamu was unpredictable in that way, constantly on the move with Dark Spear both possessing him and still in the physical form of the spear. As the fight went on, flashes of light burst across the sky and sounds of hard impacts and auras clashing boomed and echoed away.

Tesamu charged again, and this time he appeared right next to Raizel. But Raizel didn't startle when he flung the spear point blanc at him. A pair of wings immediately shrouded his body, catching the spear. As they peeled away, a strong flap redirected the spear back towards Tesamu. He banked left, letting the weapon travel past him, but the reflex had disrupted his sequence and he was caught by one of the motions of the blood wings. The blood aura of Raizel's wings passed through Tesamu, sapping the energy right out of his body. Tesamu threw himself back violently. When he had a moment to take in the damage, he found himself panting.

Something shifted in the corner of his eye and Tesamu snapped his eyes up, not realising it was a mistake. As he glared daggers at Raizel, Raizel pulled off his line of defences, unfurling large wingspans to reveal energy warping at his fingertips and buzzing to be released. Tesamu narrowed his eyes, immediately readying himself to dodge when his body betrayed him. He stayed put straight in his _very wide_ line of attack. He had already locked eyes with him too long. Tesamu growled, freeing himself with a quick tug and spin out of the way. He could resist mind control, but it was too hard when trying his mind was occupied with Dark Spear and the lapse had been as subtle as staying frozen for the mere two seconds that mattered. And it was by design. Even if 'poor' couldn't begin to describe Raizel's hopelessness with _real_ combat, he was no fool in a battle.

Raizel's attack beamed through his shoulder. Tesamu jerked up and yelled with Dark Spear laced within it.

Raizel didn't relent. He lifted an arm immediately, collecting aura for another attack. Tesamu shuddered as he held onto his shoulder, his eyes darting around to find where the next attack would come from. _Left, no; right, no; above? Nothing._ The shoulder healed faster than it should have. It was an early sign that Dark Spear was getting antsy as flesh and veins pulled itself back together and Tesamu felt it intimately. The pain of regeneration was often much worse than the actual attack. He spun again trying to find the attack when something rumbled beneath him. _Below,_ he mouthed, as he set bone back into place. A water spout made completely out of aura rose from below and began to head his way. With a blast of power, Tesamu punched through it, making it dissipate from the top down. Raizel frowned and glided another hand through the air, summoning more. More bloody spouts began to form like tornadoes around them, rising into the air and making it impossible to use speed to get around his wingspan. Raizel watched Tesamu balk as his options narrowed.

The Noblesse's blood field allowed him complete control over the medium of blood. It was made for vaporising. On enemies that required more than that, the blood wings harnessed all power for combat. The way his wings stirred the air created strong centres of atmospheric pressure, which gave rise to vortexes that rotated around it. Six or seven or so of the technique hovered above the lake — less of what he'd produced during the battle with Urokai and Zarga, but with his entire power set manifested and blood wings summoned, it was more than enough.

"…Then…" Tesamu tilted his head to the sky and then nodded downwards. Projectiles began to fall all around them, some landing and dissolving into Raizel's blood spouts, some disappearing into his wings. The shower of projectiles beat down until suddenly, the downpour suddenly stilled. Tesamu controlled the fall and stopped them, hundreds of them surrounding Raizel, hanging vacantly in midair. Tesamu's eyes darted from left to right, judging how long he could hold position until the spouts closed in. Slowly, the vertical projectiles began to vibrate. They turned to point towards Raizel, locking in his position.

"You've always relied completely on raw power as the only way to do battle. Ergo, you disregard all else. It doesn't matter that you don't fight hand to hand. You're too complacent." Suddenly, Tesamu shifted, forcing the projectiles to shoot towards Raizel. But Raizel was slow, with too much to think about, too much to maintain. His wings curled over to cover him, dozens and dozens of javelin-like projectiles digging into them. The purple energy was extinguished and merged into red as Raizel got rid of Tesamu's projectiles.

Tesamu huffed, waiting to see the result. The speed of the attack far surpassed that of the movement of his wings - it was what was dragging the fight on and what Tesamu had counted on. Raizel's wings drew apart like curtains, revealing a single of Dark Spear's projectiles lodged below his breast. Tesamu grinned, his grin vanishing as Raizel clasped a hand around it easily. Raizel pulled the weapon out, making it dissipate.

He didn't tilt his head lower to better face Tesamu, only kept him in his minimal line of sight. "I have yet to meet an opponent in which I cannot not put down with 'raw power.' "

"Even at the cost of yourself?"

"Tesamu," Raizel said softly, "I have only done battle with Frankenstein once. On the day he went berserk and lost himself on Lukedonia. I understand that he was not of sound mind, but the fight had ended very quickly."

Tesamu threw his head back and sneered. "You want to know why Frankenstein lost to you, then? Do you?"

Raizel just looked at him, unshaken. "Speak. I insist."

"It's exactly as you said yourself. He lost because that wasn't really _Frankenstein_ — not all of him, anyway. That was Dark Spear, auto piloting emotions and what reflexes he happened to have. That was bark and bite and brute force with no head to assimilate." Two vortexes closed in on Tesamu. Heaving, he wrenched away. Soon after, another came into close proximity and he jumped out of the way of that one too. Multiple began to travel towards him again.

"If you have a 'point,' let it be known," Raizel said, brow creasing.

Tesamu began to shout as he evaded collision.

"Professor Frankenstein had made a reputation of himself winning enemies that were more powerful than him. Because — because he, he used every variable and usable aspect of him to his advantage: technique, strategy, terrain, psychology, the power of his enemies used against them." Tesamu stared Raizel down, smirking.

To Tesamu's bewilderment, Raizel's face slowly stretched into a smile. "You're saying that Frankenstein could have seen victory over me," he said, voice quite agreeable. "…in my humble opinion, I believe that could be so. But…"

Raizel's wings unfurled, stretching to their fullest. "That does not matter, Tesamu. You may say all you want, you may be convinced of it, but there is one variable that cannot be changed."

Tesamu clenched his fist. "What?"

"You are not Frankenstein."

Tesamu leaned back. _"What?"_

"You say Frankenstein may defeat me, and you blatantly compare yourself to him as if it would give you an edge. You are not Frankenstein," he said simply. "I know Dark Spear will not fight for you."

"They'll fight for me if it's against you!" he cried. Tesamu charged again.

This time, blood wings didn't furl over Raizel or flick Tesamu away like a fly. To his surprise, he met Raizel directly, claws chock-filled with aura blocked by the noblesse with just three fingers. "Tesamu," he said, "you may have gained his knowledge, but you failed to inherit what was important — not his will to protect or his want for justice." There was quiet for a moment, a terrible, haunting quiet. "You did not inherit Frankenstein's heart." Tesamu's eyes widened.

"'My bonded's apprentice.' Tesamu," Raizel continued, shutting his eyes for a moment. "You have long lost your right to call yourself that."

Tesamu broke out of Raizel's hold, dealing a blow to his chest. Whipping around to strike again, he was stopped by Raizel, arms parrying the move and then redirecting the aura attack that shot a hole through a wing. Words from someone like him shouldn't have stung but Tesamu was with Dark Spear and they lapped it up and fed it back and it was lies, and it was scare tactics, and it was-

"The fortunate news is that Frankenstein had graciously erected a school. In another life, you should enrol in it, learn what you failed so horrendously to learn this time."

And then Raizel lifted an arm high, looking down on Tesamu as his entire body seized up. Tesamu realised just too late that he'd looked him in the eyes too long, that he'd fallen for the same trick twice, that he was careless. Or maybe this was calculated, Raizel's timing was not coincidence, all the hundreds of things that could have gone wrong had gone wrong and he never had a chance in the first place.

Raizel watched the defiance in his eyes lapse, turning into something embarrassing and shameful. There had to be more. There had to be more to say, but Raizel said nothing. Perhaps he didn't want to waste his breath on him anymore, perhaps he thought Tesamu already knew. But Tesamu didn't know. Dark Spear beat against his skull, just as powerless as he was. The red aura was like Frankenstein's, wreathed in his hand like flames. Raizel arched his head, poised to kill.

In that moment, Tesamu was still, his body trapped in snowdrift, terribly, terribly cold.

All of a sudden, without warning, the blood spouts collapsed.

Like tattered ends breaking, or souls unraveling, it all came apart. A tremor ran through Raizel's body, starting small from the roots of his wings and ending in a rift. His powers jolted, wrangled, and Raizel leaned over to hold a hand to his mouth, stopping him from giving the final blow. The winds picked up, gusting behind him as his wings began to drag and wilt. He coughed blood. Tesamu's eyes went wild and wide, his control put back into his body as he slumped before Raizel.

Raizel straightened, his lithe form wavering in Tesamu's amber eyes. Tesamu leaned back. With a grunt, he threw his head back as strands of Dark Spear split down his face, parting away like dead snake skin. Had the plan worked? Had he fizzled himself out? Did Tesamu have enough in him to reverse that killing blow and claim a victory?

"So you're done now." Tesamu nodded to him, eyes twinkling. "It took you long enough, Cadis Etrama di Raizel," he said, voice a mere whisper, "But I want you to know, you'll never see Frankenstein again. Not as long as I have Dark Spear."

Raizel wobbled left and right, struggling to keep himself in the air.

"You hurt him," Tesamu said. "You hurt him and took his freedom and his everything and had the gall to call him _yours._ "

Dark Spear jingled behind his ears as they came alive again, shushing themselves into silence. "You manipulated him and played with him and made him care about you!" he screeched, his mind going white. " _You're just...like. Me."_

Raizel didn't speak — couldn't. Tesamu stared at him, wondering how much longer it could take. The world had stopped again, and Raizel wore his slow-beating heart on his red tainted sleeve.

"Look here," Tesamu whispered. If he reached out to touch him right now, he could grab his face and make him look. But he didn't.

"Look at me."

Raizel looked up. Tesamu showed his distaste for him in his expression, accepting that he had won.

* * *

 _Like him?_

 _A golden boy, with sunshine hair, and amber eyes, bright and smiling and running down the walls of Frankenstein's mind._

And the knowledge that he was failing got bigger and bigger, the weight of his own of his wings grew heavier and heavier. The kaleidoscope pattern swirled and drooped, the gleam of its iridescence dulled. His six wings began to drip.

 _He had hurt Frankenstein, hadn't he?_

"One day, even the sun will run out of light. As the Noblesse, you have the same fate," he said. "I've only made fate turn faster."

 _He and Tesamu._

Raizel shook his head, blood spiderwebbing down his chin.

"You should die now, Cadis Etrama di Raizel," Tesamu said to him with Dark Spear in his voice. "Just die."

Funny. He thought there may even had been a touch of pity in Tesamu's tight, hoarse voice.

He fought so hard to stay upright. He couldn't let it end like this. He couldn't afford to fall.

Raizel moved, one last tilt up to see Tesamu's face, already blurring.

He fell.

.

.

.

.

.

All there was, was confusion.

It seemed so small, so inconsequential from the distance they were at. A blight in the sky no bigger than candle smoke billowing. A short moment afterwards, the wind leapt up into their faces, blowing back the dust and tree branches and long grass.

And then came the rain.

Drops of red showered over the children. They all stilled in sick, morbid reckoning. It was unearthly. Red warped around the falling figure, unfurling and evaporating behind him in streaks of dimming light and power, peeling back to reveal one wingless noble. His wings had vaporised, pair by pair, littering scale-like droplets and fragments over the night sky. The remains of a nebulae storm, swirling and stirring into a shower. The most sudden and warning-less monsoon swept over the lands, touching everything. It stopped just as clean cut, just as simply.

A call ripped over the silence then, making the backs of their necks shiver. But they didn't turn to see what it was, couldn't take their eyes off the descending man as their Raizel kept falling, head-first, finally disappearing from where they could see him.

The children all dropped what they were doing in that split second instance, Tao crawling over the parts of Tesamu's weapons and helped by Takeo over to the path as M-21, Seira and Regis hurried forward to the lake. Muzaka's mouth was wide open, a sort of defeat in his eyes like he'd been slapped in the face as he watched on, waiting for something when nothing more happened. Lunark averted her eyes, knowing what it all meant. She watched as the children scrambled away, leaving their enemy and ally behind.

It all happened too quickly. In the confusion, no one bothered to think of who had called out, striking them out of all their stupor. No one saw another man dive off the neighbouring cliffside, free falling into the lake after the Noblesse.

* * *

 **Notes.**

Here's a long one for the wait. Thank you so much for your reviews, they're what keeps me going with this fic. 'Mighty Long Fall' is an One OK Rock song that I love. I want to make it the theme of this chapter hahaha. Tesamu could never win Raizel in a fight but Raizel cannot fight for a second longer than he is physically capable. And he pulled every trick he had. He exhausted himself and Tesamu was counting on it.

Dubu Jorim - Tesamu being Extra is Right.

Mihaelnia - You said,"...I feel pity towards Tesamu. Perhaps for everything that's happened. Perhaps for his struggle. Perhaps for his relationship with his Professor. It is ruined, one can say that. But there's no denying of how much he valued their history together." And I'm glad the fic made you feel that, it's something I can be very proud of. :)

XxDarkBeautyxX - Frankenstein is never above tripping and falling on his face. Noblesse will always be noblesse, thus we make everyone look ugly hahaha.

Ready Reviewer 1- Spoilers - Frankenstein appears next chapter ;D

Elims - Rai with not one, not two, but three sets of wings! I'm sure he's lighting up half the world but Franken is closer than you think.

general zargon - Thank you! No, Raizel never gets to see if Franken is actually in Dark Spear but it's a long shot for him. He doesn't know...

UrFicIsAwesome - You said, "I absolutely cannot wait until the look on their faces when they see Frankenstein~ **" and I will do my best not to disappoint.

Laryna6 - I think Rai did love the golden child for making Franken happy. He loved him because Franken loved him. But the real him right now is so far removed from that... He's never really hated anyone before but this is it. Hate and love and everything in between. It's strange. You liked the 'Face full of axe' banter?! I'm glad.

I wrote this long-winded fight scene specifically to spite the sort of...terrible directionless fights where all the household are there but they just...do nothing. Just watch. Like, whaa? No, they are all doing something because they are RK and they have a plan that they talked out before jumping in. "I love all the ways you make Rai's power feel cosmic and grand here, contrasted with Rai himself, who is Doing His Best but just wants to hear/see Franken again..." YES, THANKS.

Guest - Update? I got ur back.


	37. The Drowning Code

Thanks for sticking with this one for so long. You guys are great.

* * *

 **The drowning code**

He was sinking,

sinking,

sinking.

Drifting away, drifting afar, disappearing into the vastness. All he could think about was how lonesome it all seemed, suddenly, his arms splayed before him as the water's surface grew more and more elusive and illogical to touch. How lonesome it all was, falling into the depths of the nothingness, gravity pulling him down and silent.

It was the silence that killed. Stripped his soul clean like wind over rock, chiselling mountains down to dust. Something that slipped under his skin and burrowed into the marrow of his bones; he was hollow and empty, some resting place for sorrow. Weightless and defanged, it ate him up. He could almost let it all go — his burdens, let them wash away with the chill of the water. Let them freeze in this icy place. He could let it all go. But his eyes were slick with tears.

Like a broken marionette, all un-feeling, his wandering mind finally dwelled in the same place as his body. Basked in water and in the cold grogginess, his eyes were slick with tears that defied gravity, would never run. His untouchable wounds, invisible battle scars littered everywhere: he couldn't feel it, for the moment, perhaps his last — the water lifted the weight of them to the surface like the bubbles of unheld breath. He couldn't hold onto anything any longer. He was too weak.

He was born stalwart, strong and ceaseless like the course of planets and solar bodies, but that was long gone. He felt the hollowness where the solitude had bit into him like ice, left teethmarks, felt the ache in the divinity of his wings no one else could feel or ever hope to understand. Well, now that he was one noble and one single soul. But this almost felt alright — it was better to fall than dangle on that edge.

His grief-lidded eyes, clumsy fingers in the water, he took a chance to wonder: why was his fall so slow? Descending to the depths in slow motion, in utter, calm acquiescence, this too, was agony. He reached up tentatively, trying to touch something far away on the surface. Shattered against the truth and the tempest, he even mourned for the sunlight child. Remembered him wandering after whom he'd never had to chase. Smog settled behind his eyes, muting all.

He was obliterated the moment he let the one that mattered so much slip out of his sight and disappear the way he once did. (But how was he to know that he would not come back? How was he to know that his bonded wouldn't either?) But at least his bonded gave some warning. At least he got to see him open the door and leave. Frankenstein didn't get to have even that. _Turn-tail and run._ He racked his drowsy, disorientated mind, finding the memories beyond the ragged parts of himself. _White tulips, white tulips, white tulips,_ he muttered away as he sank. Beneath the ever-choppy, ever-churning waves, he sunk with unspoken words coating his tongue.

When it ended, it would end in shame, with the memory of his most beloved, the things he held true and dearer than the life he was losing.

The pendulum was slowing and it seemed as if it would stop, and cease to tick in the middle.

* * *

 _"Come back."_

The ghost of a memory touched him.

A burst of bubbles blew from his lips. _Frankenstein?_

It was his voice. _Where are you? I'm so afraid that I'll — that I'll just forget, one day…the sound of your voice._

Red eyes blinked in the water. His sight wobbled in a haze and he fought back to his senses. Why did this seem so familiar? Was it a dream? Was he dreaming? Nobles did not dream, but in his slumber he was connected to his bonded. He had seen parts of his life go by and felt what he had felt so strongly;

 _I've never felt so afraid — what if, what if I've forgotten it already? If you called me would I still know to answer? Call my name. Call me to you. I don't want to forget._

 _'Frankenstein,'_ Raizel thought.

His heart sunk.

 _…Fuck._

 **"Frankenstein!"**

The word that came out of his mouth gurgled into bubbles. Raizel's eyes widened. He opened his mouth to call again, make a sound, but all that came out was a jumble and he was suddenly gripped with fear.

It should have ended all those eight hundred and twenty years ago. He didn't even care if it was duty or obligation or something else — he wanted Frankenstein and Frankenstein wanted him. That was enough for him to claw his way out of the mouth of death and strike down the opponent that obstructed him. That day, he defied everything to come back to Frankenstein, because Frankenstein wanted him to come back. And if that was what Frankenstein wanted, then that was what Raizel was about to do. Even if Frankenstein was gone — Raizel would do what he wanted.

He stopped gurgling his name, defied the hopeless thoughts that tried to envelop him. Before, it was Frankenstein that made him disregard everything to return, but now there were so many things to live for. He wouldn't dare make M-21, Takeo, Tao sad; he wouldn't think of giving Regis and Seira a bad report back to Lukedonia. Raizel needed to pick out his latest school uniform and go to class — _oh how far behind he was in mathematics._ Shinwoo, Ikhan and Yuna and Suyi, they wanted their friend back. They needed somebody to beat in the internet cafe. Who was he to deprive them of that?

Amid the chattering that filled up the dull moments, the pass-code door, microwave meals and home-baked cookies, there was Frankenstein that had given him this life. He had never deserved any of it, never could, but. Frankenstein had waited so long and impatiently for Raizel to return and share that life with him. Raizel wanted that life like he'd wanted Frankenstein. All he'd ever been was to be too afraid to reach out and take it. He let that memory flicker like a candlelight, seeking it out, remembering what he'd heard in his slumber. He could _never_ forget the sound of Frankenstein's voice.

The pattern of the waves rocked to and fro from above, reflected in the red of his eyes.

He had solved this riddle of drowning — Cadis Etrama di Raizel needed to live.

A rush of water gushed into his lungs, stinging his airways. He raised his neck, squinting in the darkness. He lifted his arms, trying to flail in random directions to find his bearings. His movements were so sluggish and weighted. His breath had long floated away, and now his mind was starting to go fuzzy from loss of oxygen. Raizel kicked his legs, completely disorientated in this alien place, ignoring the cold that stabbed him all over. But it was no use. He had inhaled so much water.

His mouth was opening and closing, voicing nothing as he clenched and waded his arms in languid strokes, with nothing to show for it.

Still, he was sinking. The surface of the water no longer looked like watching the storm from the bottom of the ocean, it looked stiller, calmer. And yet, he _couldn't_ die here. His movements were losing power and his awareness was weak, diluted, nothing else inside of him that could conjure a thing to help.

Water flooded into his body. He thought he could burst from the tight feeling of claustrophobia, and the pressure clamping down on his ribcage, pressing in everywhere. Raizel opened his mouth for air and clenched when there wasn't any. The sharp feeling of cold strained down his oesophagus, into his nasal cavity, into his larynx, struck him with pain. He writhed in short, involuntary spasms, feeling the _feeling_ go away. Raizel didn't stop reaching.

Gasps ceased to suck in more water. His fading sight botched over with blackness. His arms went limp. But he didn't believe in dying right now. He was still fighting when it all came to a stop.

All the while the surface seemed more remote, Raizel reached, and reached, and reached.

A hand clasped onto his, wrenching him with all the strength of a million suns back to the top.

* * *

Frankenstein struggled for breath, sucking and forcing air down his lungs so he could move and fight against the current. It took all he had within him, every dram of energy left in his terror-seized body to not stop or break down — if he hesitated, if he lost it for just a moment and gave into the dozen damning scenarios swimming about his head, that could be enough for him to lose everything. He didn't even have time to consider the solitariness of it all, the lack of voices cheering him on or dragging him down. There was no one trying to spite him in the distance or make a sick joke for him to cringe and laugh at. He couldn't save a simple thought for the pounding in his chest, pounding his muscles into submission.

 _Move. move._ Frankenstein lugged his way over the water, gasping for another intake of air. _You're ok. You're ok._ Frankenstein kept Raizel close, trying to stop the heat leaving his body and trying to hold his head high above the water, _you're going to be ok._ He balanced Raizel's head on his shoulder, using his free hand to grapple with the waves.

His eyes waded through the depths of sky and lake, horizonless. It was hard to see things here. The water was one boundless sea of black to him. Frankenstein saw nothing. It was almost as if Dark Spear had him in its clutches again, pulsating around his body, closing in with pressure from all sides — but that can't be — he was cold; he had one voice in his head telling him to _move._

Raizel was incredibly light against his hold and it frightened Frankenstein just as much as the moment they parted souls. Languid and lifeless. Frankenstein summoned some energy, making the couple metres ahead of him glow white. With a last push and tug, Frankenstein plod onto the shore and collapsed onto the banks, arms holding Raizel as his back grazed the rocks. With another huff, he rolled over the pebbles, placing Raizel down with trembling hands. It was only now that he realised how his hands were trembling again.

"Master!"

Inches from him, and Frankenstein felt _nothing._

 _"Master?"_

Nothing stirred.

For a blank, dumb second, Frankenstein's arms dropped to his sides.

And then everything came cascading back at once, filling his insides with the fire he needed. Frankenstein flung himself over Raizel, pressing his head to his chest. The smallest hiccup of a heartbeat pulsed over him. He barely held himself there long enough to determine the sound, fast-slow, erratic and completely out of beat. "Hold on! Please — you're going to be alright!"

Frankenstein gritted his teeth together, keeping them from chattering. "You're going to live," he scowled, shifting beside Raizel to do something.

He folded his hands over his chest and began to pump, counting the numbers in his head and calculating the exact amount of pressure to exert. With the strength he had regained, he couldn't risk damaging Raizel's ribs if he pushed too hard. _"Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…"_ He droned under his breath, huffing out mist he couldn't see. _"Twenty-nine, thirty—"_

With a swipe of his hands, Frankenstein brushed wet hair from his face, lifted Raizel's chin, tilted his forehead back — and with no hesitation, pressed his mouth to Raizel's. Stoic eyes watched his chest rise once, twice, before immediately moving to pump his chest again. _"Two, three, four, five…"_

This wasn't enough. This was so temporary, he had to think of something. Frankenstein poured back into his knowledge, searching furiously for what to do.

* * *

 _A thought:_

When he put down his hand to feel for damage, he listened to the way a young girl's heart buzzed in a dozen, awkward directions. It was weak and erratic, little jumpy beats beating at the wrong time, in wrong rhythms. Heart fibrillation in such a young girl? It seemed unlikely, but the evidence was there. Tesamu was fearing for the stranger's life and the family was already mourning when they shouldn't.

There was no split second decision to expose his power or not — it had already been made the moment he stepped into that hut and heard the girl's heart flutter. Frankenstein gathered his golden aura and did what he could to save her life.

He expected backlash, when all he got was handshakes.

* * *

Dark Spear was gone.

His eyes widened as he realised what that meant. Defibrillator — he realised he'd used his powers to mimic a defibrillator before. Frankenstein flipped his hands before him, wondering if he could do what he did all that time ago. His aura wasn't the same, it wasn't as vigorous or electrifying as before. Could he do it?

The besmirched colour illuminated the shoreline, whitening the dark in Frankenstein's sight. He closed his eyes, bracing one hand over Raizel's chest while refining his aura, sharpening it to the intensity he needed. This needed to be exact. Or as exact as he could manage at this rate. He swallowed, brow already wet again with cold sweat as he concentrated on the feel of his aura.

He couldn't afford any more stall in time.

Frankenstein folded his hands over Raizel's chest. He pooled his aura from his core, built up a charge, and concentrated it to to a point. Frankenstein shuddered.

He shocked Raizel's heart.

Raizel's skin jumped. Electricity flickered. Frankenstein's entrails rattled. He gasped, putting his head down onto Raizel's chest to check. "…Master?" he called in the dark.

" _Ugh!"_ Frankenstein's palms barely touched his forehead before he flitted them down, focussed his powers again. "You promised me," he began to say, pressing his hands urgently, "You promised me I could stay by your side! You promised me to let me serve you! Master — wake up!" Sparks pricked from his fingertips again. He drove his power to shock Raizel's heart one more time. "Wake up!"

* * *

Raizel jolted awake, eyes snapping to their widest and pupils dilating. Patterns of blurs swam around his sight. What had happened? Where was the water? There had been water. Something stung at the base of his brain and he groaned at the incessant ring.

When his hand touched the ground — the ground? — a marshy graininess met him back and he recoiled, wondering what he'd touched. The ringing was loud, blaring over his muddied mind and all he could hear was himself huffing for breath. He steadied, and Raizel whacked what was in front of him away, facing away from the mass of shadow.

But he suddenly fell into a coughing fit, his gag reflex choking out lake water. Raizel shakily climbed to his feet before doubling over again. There was weight on his shoulder and he hurried to brush it off, swipe all the foreign objects off of him with without knowing where they were. What was left of his powers was spiralling out of control and before he knew it, a red mist began to furl around him and his red tears started slipping. Raizel was an open wound. Confusion dizzied him; the same shape seemed to be shifting around his sight, the same sound was merging with the ring in his ears and the mist pulsed weakly.

He toppled into overdrive, his senses picking up everything in the immediate region and processing it faster than he could understand. Water slapping, waves crashing, trees swaying, people dreaming, energies flowing, thoughts flying — nobles and humans — anyone, anywhere, everywhere. It changed constantly, making sounds glint and sights scream. Raizel squeezed his eyes shut and buckled. Something caught him and squeezed his arms with trembling fingers. _Fingers?_

Raizel opened his eyes and grimaced. The day — _or was it night? Still night?_ — was spinning, sloshing around as his head shifted left, right; Raizel coughed again before—

There was breath before his face, a figure over the jumble. A pair of hands flew up, clasped his head between them, and Raizel's world stopped spinning. For the moment. That same sound, caught in the boggling, senselessness of everything, sounded louder and steadier. What were they saying? What were they saying? Raizel blinked again when it dawned.

"Master! Master! _Mas-_ Master!"

He blanked his face, a white sheet, and waited for the rest of him to wake up.

"Master! Can you hear me? Are you alright? Master?!"

His fingers dug into the backs of their — the human's — hands on his face and he gave in because the familiarity choked him. He gasped and croaked, "Frankenstein?"

"Yes."

A silence cut through him. Then a finger swiped over his face, softer and gentler than a breeze, wiping away a trail of bloodied tears. And then another. And another. Raizel could see. The mist evaporated into nothing.

 _"Frankenstein?!"_ he mumbled, more tears heating behind his sockets. Nothing made sense. He liked that it didn't. He just wanted this to last longer. Whatever it was. Raizel plucked off the hands by the wrists, held onto them, and stared. Blonde hair, and a face he knew better than his own. Eyes no longer so blue, yet just as deep, just as passionate, caring. This was Frankenstein.

 _"Master,"_ Frankenstein uttered, letting Raizel hold his wrists between them. "It's me." He lingered there, frowning and relaxing, trying to figure out what was happening. "It's me," Frankenstein repeated, "it's me, Master, I'm here." He sighed, shot Raizel a sort of grin, "it's Frankenstein. I'm fine, Master. I'm alright."

"You're alive," Raizel whispered.

"I'm alive." Frankenstein lowered their hands and Raizel slowly let go. The hysteria died away and when the splotches started to clear up, Raizel began to waver. Frankenstein shifted in an instant. Raizel collapsed his weight onto Frankenstein. He leaned on him, stagnant, poised between relief and disbelief; the magnitude of what had happened not yet registering.

"How dare you," Raizel said flatly.

"How dare I," Frankenstein murmured.

"I cannot believe you."

"I cannot believe myself."

"Your aura feels different."

"It is."

"You're ok."

"Now I am."

Raizel wrapped his arms around him, put his heart on his sleeve, put it as close he could to Frankenstein, and buried his face into his hair. Frankenstein gasped lightly. Blood that wasn't his began to drip down his back. Frankenstein dug his chin into Raizel's shoulder. It occurred to Raizel that Frankenstein couldn't feel any of the things he was trying to convey. There were no words that could compare. He wasn't even sure what he wanted to convey. They held each other for a long while, nothing to be said in that moment. Raizel just laid there, focussing his world on Frankenstein. He felt his calloused palms scrape behind his neck, the slight rise and fall of his chest. Frankenstein's shoulder's rose and his arms moved down his back, squeezing him close. Raizel drifted in the sensation, in the warm comfort of the gesture until he could form the words he needed to say in the right way. Yet he still stumbled over them, a slight babble here and there.

"I'm so — you — Muzaka — Tesamu, Tesamu tore us apart."

Frankenstein jerked up, looking Raizel in his eyes. "I know!" he quickly interjected, "I know, I know, and I'm - you shouldn't have had to feel that." In the endless space of black and white, Raizel's eyes were redder than red to Frankenstein. Jewels set in marble. He felt cold and was still wet, but Raizel had come alive again in Frankenstein's embrace, holding onto something he could not afford to let go of. Frankenstein inhaled sharply. "I am so sorry. Master, I - I'm the one that…in the end…

He crumpled.

"I abandoned you. But I didn't mean to leave, Master. I didn't mean to…" His voice cracked.

"Neither did I."

Frankenstein's eyes went wide. Raizel sighed sharply. "I couldn't have dreamed of leaving and never coming back, all those years ago, Frankenstein. I did not foresee what would happen. Muzaka and I fought and…I lost everything." Raizel said.

Frankenstein didn't answer.

"I wish circumstances were different. I wish I didn't make you feel so alone. I wish I knew how to comfort you in this new world I awoke in, how to still be worthy of your trust. I've soiled our contract."

"No!" Frankenstein's arms pressed into Raizel. "You did what you had to do. You always do what you have to do, no matter the cost to yourself or what you want. Even if it meant saving some wayward human about to destroy your homeland, or stray children, ex-Union escapees. There is no reality where you can let a child die and a friend to rampage over innocents. There's not. That's why I follow you." He let out a low chuckle. "And yet I blamed you for that. I, someone who swore to you that I'd protect you, did the worst possible thing imaginable. You didn't do anything wrong, Master. I was wrong. I am wrong."

Raizel coughed, a wet hack. "You're the rightest thing in my life, Frankenstein," Raizel breathed. "Don't you dare — think otherwise."

Frankenstein swallowed, and swallowed again.

"Don't you dare think that you are anything but the most profound soul I've ever had the privilege to meet. Let alone bond with. Let alone spend time with through ages."

"Master, I—"

"Listen,"

"You shouldn't have to—"

"Listen, Frankenstein," he said, struggling against himself and the lightness of his head. Frankenstein went quiet.

Raizel reached a hand up, though he was too exhausted for even that amount of movement. He couldn't manage to land right and ended up instead, slapping Frankenstein in the face. But he held his hand there, holding his cheek. "I care, immensely."

Frankenstein sighed, pressed his forehead into Raizel's shoulder as he said it.

"About you," Raizel finished.

"I know," Frankenstein grumbled into his shoulder. "Master, I know that. You've told me." Raizel smiled through creaky lips. Frankenstein inhaled. "And now I need you to know that it wouldn't have mattered whether you'd awakened after eight hundred and twenty years or a thousand. Ten thousand. A hundred thousand. I will always wait for you, and I will always follow you."

Raizel felt exhausted. He nodded, closing his eyes shut, not a shred of strength left to answer.

"I'll be there when you wake up, Master."

Raizel nodded one last time.

Frankenstein watched over him as Raizel drifted off to sleep, the red of his eyes blinking shut, throwing the world back into noir.

* * *

An Sangeen heard the chirp of the car door lock over his shoulder and picked a second cigarette as the first one fumbled out of his hands. He reared his head, inhaling the first whiff of it deeply, hoping the nicotine could get to work in time. He felt like this was one of those cases where he'd need it. Cigarette smoke curled between his fingers and the dull sting of it at the back of mouth and nostrils felt like routine. He turned in a circle, eyes finally finding Yonsu. Na Yonsu rolled her eyes at the smoke before gesturing him to follow. Sangeen trekked into the urban wilderness after her.

"What do you think it is this time," he said, smoke furling from his words as they left him.

"What else?" Yonsu sneered through the dark. She sounded more annoyed than on routine. Or frustrated. One wasn't far from the other when they were running into the heart of the latest incident like this. It was often that two high level KSA were deployed on freak runs akin to this one, but this one…this one was _freaky_. More so than usual, even for the two of them.

"It's either the Union or the nobles. There's literally nothing else I can pretend this is," she said. Yonsu pushed past the shrubbery and was promptly met by the gate.

"Aliens?" Sangeen offered innocently.

Yonsu took a pause from rattling the gate, her entire body relaxing defeatedly. She turned only her head around. Half of her glare glazed Sangeen from behind her shoulder. He put his hands up in surrender. Smoke blew from his nose as he did, shielding him from her stare.

"Sorry," he said.

"You better be."

"But at this rate, if it really is aliens, I would not be even a little bit surprised anymore."

"Nnn."

After a bit more fiddling with the gate, Yonsu felt for the weapon at her side, checking it was secured. Then she heaved up her weight, swinging onto the other side of the gate easily.

"Hurry up."

Smoke blew from Sangeen again. "I am." He tucked the cigarette in his mouth and moved to mimic her.

"Here," Yonsu said, reaching past the gate as Sangeen's hands were full with trying to get himself over after her. "Lemme help you hold that." She snatched the cigarette as he pulled back. Yonsu hovered it stark before his face before flitting it onto the wet floor. She crushed the cigarette under her shoe. Sangeen coughed a little as he landed.

"…Thanks, Yonsu."

"You're welcome."

They continued, both of them picking up the pace.

Sangeen pressed his fingers together, feeling the wetness from the gate. When Yonsu turned back to shoot a look, she grimaced. Sangeen lifted it to his mouth and licked.

"What are you doing?"

"The rain," Sangeen said. For the moment, he was extremely mournful for that cigarette. He needed a drink after this one. "It's blood."

Yonsu's eyes widened. They both understood what that meant. She nodded, believing him, and hurried on. "There," she pointed, "That's where the flare was." Over the lake. They'd seen what blood magic could do and the chasm that noble made when he unleashed it. The kid in the high school uniform, probably able to rip new continents if he tried. The Noblesse was definitely involved in this incident.

"So they found him," Yonsu said, not sure what that information meant. She reached into her pocket, quickly sending out a secured message back to the director at KSA that they trusted. She looked up. "Actually wait for the back up? Or keep going?"

"Pffft," Sangeen let out.

"What?"

There was worry in her voice. She held out her hand for him to take, something she only did when they were alone. Sangeen took it, squeezed, and then dropped it as they started walking again.

"Nothing, nothing…I just…the conspiracy theorists are going to get their 'end-of-the-world,' tabloids all over the news this time round, if they didn't make it the last time." He popped another cigarette into his mouth. His lighter flickered twice before setting it alight.

The 'annoyed-frustration' crossed back onto Yonsu's expression again, with a twinge more 'annoyed' and a side of 'disgust.'

"When — when have we _ever_ waited for back up and _not_ kept going?" Sangeen said honestly. He continued forward, Yonsu sighing and following in agreement.

They followed what looked like an overgrown path to the edge of the lake. It was still too dark to see to the other side and the lake seemed to swallow the reflections of the few working street lights. It was a damn-big natural lake. Damn deep too, from what Sangeen could remember from his high school education. He took another drag and exhaled from where Yonsu couldn't see.

"Sangeen," Yonsu called.

Sangeen quickly breathed in the smoke a couple more times, steeling himself to give it up at her command.

"Sangeen!"

The urgency in her voice swept him from one side of the bank to the other. He came rushing from the pebbles to stop next before Yonsu, hands outstretched and ready. Yonsu was frozen in a defensive battle stance. The sight before Sangeen and Yonsu was straight out of crappy night time telly. Sangeen's lips quirked up, beside himself. They were literally on their own damned cop show. A man was sprawled out on the bank, limbs jutting in strange directions and head jerking up-down and sideways. A sound straggled from his throat, low and groaning, and his body kept convulsing in short spasms.

"You don't look too comfortable, Mister," Sangeen started, lowering his arms. "Do you…by any chance have identification?"

The figure stopped all of a sudden. And then out of the dark, a flaming, pointed projection flew out and landed too close to Sangeen's face. Another disembowelled cry followed.

"OUT OF THE WAY, SANGEEN!"

Sangeen felt Yonsu shove him away from the fiery thing and point her gun to the creature.

"YONSU!"

It echoed over the lake.

 _Blam, Blam._

 _Blam, Blam._

 _Blam._

"You shot it five times," Sangeen said mildly.

"Because this KSA-issued standard pistol only lets you shoot five times," she gritted, reloading the barrel.

"Great," he said, "now let's hope the KSA covers hospital bills this time, because we sure can't."

"The heck you mean?" she grimaced back at him.

"Look at that thing—" Sangeen pointed to the extinguishing projectile. "Look familiar?"

She pursed her lips, disgruntled. Yonsu readied the pistol and pointed it at the figure nonetheless. Sangeen backed her up with his own.

"Chairman…Lee?" Yonsu asked cautiously, "Is that you? Principal of Ye Ran High?" She came closer, Sangeen at her side. "We were told you were overseas. Is that you, Chairman?"

 _"No."_

The figure rose up. Sangeen's eyes widened. His cigarette fell to the floor. Yonsu clasped her weapon tighter, finger itching to pull the trigger many more times than just five. A scabby, crawling entity was wreathed over the _quite-human_ man's body. He was huffing and gasping for breath standing on what looked like jagged legs. For a faint moment, Sangeen thought it really was the Chairman, with that blonde hair. Slowly, painfully, the purple entity seemed to retreat, pulling back behind him and folding away into nothing. The man took a breath of air like a drowning man, and immediately slumped to the floor.

"…Hey," Yonsu called out. "Hey!" she called, louder. Sangeen patted her back once in reassurance. He went forward.

"Oi, Mister…so if you're not the devil Principal, then are you a noble or part of the Union?"

Something small stirred from the man. He lifted his head, thinking on it for a moment. "Neither." Then he nodded out of consciousness and fell flat on his face.

Sangeen looked back at Yonsu. Yonsu looked at Sangeen. Sangeen shrugged.

"See."

"What?!"

"Aliens."

* * *

Voices rang over the other side of the lake, shouting over each other with cracking vocals and sore throats. The household were scattered over the terrain, screaming Raizel's name.

"We've got to hurry!" Tao said as they ran over the shoreline, "I can hear shots over the other side — the actual authorities are here! We can't be arrested!"

"Shut up and find Raizel!" M-21 went back to running directionless.

Seira noticed it first. The slightest tinge of a familiar aura, and then not-so-familiar as it neared. Her heartbeat picked up. Her breaths quickened. She lugged Death Scythe out again, positioning it to attack the second anything went awry. The others took the signal instantly and banded behind her.

The cold, frigid lakeside furled mist in the air from their breaths.

"Who is there?" Seira asked.

The figure before them stilled. "Sei— _cough_ —" A series of coughing sounded from the darkness.

"I said, who is there?" Seira said, sterner. Seira raised Death Scythe. Tao immediately flit a hand onto her shoulder, stopping her.

"Wait."

Two figures cleaved from the dark. One man holding the other in his arms, head rested against shoulder. Blonde hair and dull eyes loomed into view. Seira's stomach plummeted. Tao grabbed her shoulder exponentially tighter. The household stood there dumbly.

The expression that had crossed Frankenstein's face was one of surprise and relief. Then a sliver of embarrassment flickered over. "Hello, everybody."

Takeo cocked his gun, pointed it pass Seira's head and shot the man's unoccupied shoulder three times. The man grunted, stumbling back three steps as he rocked.

"TAKEO?!" Regis screamed.

"Who are you?" Takeo asked with malice. "Surrender Sir Raizel this instant and identify yourself."

Frankenstein gimaced. His eyes flew to the holes in his left shoulder, brushing it off as more of a curious inconvenience than anything else. "Master is asleep, please don't be loud." He looked up from Raizel and smiled at the household. "I am Frankenstein. Chairman Lee of Ye Ran High School," he said quietly. He cleared his throat again. "Your landlord," he huffed. "And I have a few things to say about my house. I've just been there. Why is it a colossal wreck and why has no one tidied up?"

"No," Takeo pointed his gun down and up again, eyes flitting between Tao and M-21. "Prove it. Prove you're him. We're not going to be so simply fooled by another _'Mark,'"_ he said dangerously, and M-21 went stiff. "We _know_ Frankenstein and he's been gone for...months." The end of his sentence faltered. Takeo breathed in and sneered. M-21 didn't know what to think. What if this wasn't another Mark? What if it was?

Seira's concentration wavered, causing Death Scythe to dissolve and disappear from her grasp. She clapped a hand over her mouth.

"I'd appreciate it if you don't shoot me again, Takeo," Frankenstein said slowly. "Nev-never mind. What I should say is, I know I set a horrible example by throwing around the furniture like a child. And I was a horrible excuse of a boss. By now you should all know I might well be an overall horrible human being." He looked down. "I don't know how to convince you that it's me. I've been told I've been gone for a long time, and I'm sorry. None of you deserved any of the things that have happened and if I could take it all back, I would."

"…Now how the heck are we supposed to know if he's real or not?" Tao whispered back.

"Screw it," M-21 said. "Tell us something only Frankenstein would know. That's how you prove it!'

Frankenstein pondered for awhile. "Something only you could know… M-21, you must have realised I've stopped fitting you for clothes. I have to order your suit jackets, in bulk, from the tailor, every time you finish a fight." He eyed his current state. " _Of course_ right now you have to be topless. Has the latest batch run out yet? Don't tell me you've been running around half nude while I've been gone. Three months and your wardrobe goes to hell?"

As the household stared, speechless, another thought crossed his mind. "How often did you go out and fight, actually?" he ambled forward, low voice bordering on dangerous. "Did you really have to make a mess of yourself so often? Didn't I break your arm?"

Frankenstein swallowed, making a tight face at that last addition.

"You cracked my clavicle, 'couple of ribs, my arm, and a toe," M-21 finished. He stared at him in silence. A smile curled over his lips. "Welcome back, Prof."

They lunged at him, minus Rael. Tao reached him first, looking like he was brave enough to tackle if it weren't for Raizel still in Frankenstein's arms, the rest of the household not far behind him. M-21 last. All of them were torn between the joy of Frankenstein being _alive_ and the still present worry of Raizel, lying unconscious in his arms. Huddling around them, the household exclaimed with different levels of incredulity:

"YOU'RE ALIVE!"

"I am most displeased at this entire ordeal and demand answers—"

"WHERE THE HECK WERE YOU?"

 _"— I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shoot you! But I had to shoot twice for good measure, I—"_

"So. About your plane, Boss…"

"—but we'll tidy up immediately…"

"It's good to be back, everyone," Frankenstein sighed, fighting to get that ridiculous smile off his face. But he had to watch their eyes fall onto Raizel, a serene look over his sleeping face. He looked peaceful.

"Did you catch Raizel-nim?" Regis asked.

"He's soaking _wet,"_ M-21 snapped sarcastically. "What do you think?"

"How long does he need to enter sleep for?" Seira asked urgently. Frankenstein darkened. The trio exchanged looks. Even Regis hid away his questions for later.

"I don't know," Frankenstein started honestly. He looked down, unconsciously squeezing Raizel tighter. "Master has exhausted himself far beyond his limitations." He sighed. "I've never seen him exert himself like this…the last time this happened was when he fought Muzaka…"

Frankenstein paused.

"Yeah, also about that, too," Tao began, and he wondered how best to explain their circumstances.

"Yo," Muzaka greeted, hand in the air and Lunark by his side. Tao grimaced.

Frankenstein's eyes shot wide open. "Muzaka."

"Frankenstein!" Muzaka exclaimed.

"Lunark?" Frankenstein questioned, unsure which side she was supposed to be on.

"Frankenstein?!" Lunark called out in shock.

"Raizel?!" Muzaka said, worried.

 _"Muzaka,"_ Frankenstein repeated, angry.

He took a stoic step towards him, totally out of it before the feeling in his arms began to sour and he poured his attention back to Raizel.

"Lord Muzaka and Lunark are not what they seem, Chairman," Seira quickly explained. "Faust had bought reinforcements, and they helped us apprehend Gradeus."

Lunark came forward. "And Rajak Kertia has appeared to take Gradeus back to Lukedonia for his crimes."

Frankenstein nodded at their explanation. He turned to Muzaka. "I don't have time to humour you. I'm taking Master home, then we can talk. We'll invite Rajak back to the house later — I imagine Lukedonia is in utter turmoil over me." He meant it as some sad excuse for a joke, but the long looks on the children's faces told a different story. How much had happened while he was gone?

They began to head out. Frankenstein froze for a moment, taking his eyes off of Raizel to glimpse behind him. He peered over the water, saying nothing.

"Frankenstein?" M-21 said.

Lingering awhile, Frankenstein turned to him. "What happened to Faust?"

M-21 followed his eyes into the dark. "He fell. Right after Raizel-nim did."

"Oh."

They left the lakeside just before the siren blares in the distance caught up.

* * *

 **Notes**

(Posted on 28 July/17 a good date). I present to you - tv show fake medicine. I had to cut out "Trust me, Master. I'm a doctor."(because what a terrible joke to make at a terrible time, but hehe.)

Rai was having dreams about Frankenstein during his long sleep. He remembers that thing that happened in chapter 6 when Frankenstein went to that cathedral.

*xfiles theme blares at high volume in the background as An Sangeen and Na Yonsu pose with guns. I've never seen the xfiles.* I put these two chapters together because it seemed too short by itself. The title for the second half with Sangeen and Yonsu was going to be "Trigger Ecstatic." (hahaha!)

The way the lake at night was written to parallel dark spear lol. Like in chapter 18, Deep Water. Rai cannot swim so that was a close one.

But Franken and Rai - they're here again.


	38. The House Owner

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Noblesse

* * *

 **The House Owner.**

Frankenstein was there.

Brought to his knees, looking up in a gruelling, paralysing fear, every part of him roaring and shaking in spasms. A figure leered, putting his clawed hand over his chest and he knew, something inside Frankenstein was breaking. He struck him once, twice, pulling Frankenstein up by the hair when his eyes began to flutter shut.

Tesamu couldn't speak. He didn't understand why he was feeling the way he was, but it felt so familiar and yet so far away. Feeling like that should mean something was wrong with him, like something was welling up to overtake his faculties. Everything was happening at the same time, but it all remained illusory and dim: Frankenstein fighting him, Lunark, Ignes, Dark Spear; Frankenstein on fire, in the sky, and Frankenstein beaten and muddied into the ground. Everything unraveling at the seams was made every bit worser.

"Look at me."

Tesamu turned away, only to find himself facing the same scene. He tried to close his eyes, but found that he couldn't. His stomach churned. He didn't want to look. He physically did not want to look. _**Look at him.**_ Frankenstein's face contorted into that of a scream, though by now there were no more words coming out of his mouth. _**Look.** _ He was exhausted, and what flimsy protests he had left came out hoarse and broken. Then he began to beg.

The figure standing above him didn't care and watched, stagnant, as the Professor pleaded _, let go of our soul._ Tesamu had only had a brief, scant taste of it — two souls that was so utterly, intrinsically, whole.

The figure sharply focussed in his dream. Dark Spear was all over his aura and Tesamu looked at the other Tesamu standing over the Professor's body. They both blanched at what they'd done.

* * *

Tesamu woke up.

The coldness of his dream amplified in reality, striking him everywhere. The world was painted in green. He gasped for breath, making bubbles burst out before him in the healing chamber. It clicked that he'd fallen unconscious and had been taken away from the lakeside. Where was he?

 _Who had him?_ Tesamu reacted in fear. His body arched backwards, snapping into a crescent. Then he used the momentum to launch a fist to the glass, but the move was slow and listless under water, completely useless. His eyes stung from opening them in whatever fluids his captors had submerged him in. Tesamu shut his eyes and began to pound on the glass with all the power he could muster. On his fourth attempt, the healing chamber cracked and shattered. Liquids and chemicals poured out at once, flooding the laboratory floor. Tesamu was forced out with it, his tight oxygen mask and IV lines ripping off in the process. They left red marks on his skin, a sign of a rushed job when putting them on. _Just how bad had his condition been?_

Outside the pod, the air met his wet skin, piercing him fully alert. As he looked around, Tesamu's attention fell onto the things on a nearby table, used mugs, clipboards and penholders, all inscribed with a shield insignia. _Not Union,_ he thought. His panic died away. Tesamu lied amid the broken glass, just he got onto all fours, pushing himself up to try make sense of things. The glass crunched beneath his palms.

A woman burst through the door with the air of someone whom doors were never designed to stop. Her eyes widened immediately at the flood as water rushed out the door and soaked her shoes in a small wave. A man ran in after her, brandishing a gun. The man's face fell despite his relaxing at seeing Tesamu as weakened as he was. The woman — he was sure it was this woman that shot him: short brown hair, scowl, held herself like military — she clasped the tip of the man's gun and trailed it down towards the floor. The man freed his weapon from her and urgently hid it behind his back.

"Hey," he said, putting on a reassuring smile. "How was the water in there?"

Tesamu was shivering. He climbed to his feet, finding a table to balance on. Paying no mind to the flood, the woman sloshed though, closing the distance without a beat. She helped him up. "Hey, not our fault," she said, "It's cold because your temperature regulation was atrocious. You were burning up in there."

"Who—" Tesamu demanded, trying to push the shoot-on-sight woman away. All he managed to do was grapple and wipe his wet hands on her. "—Who are you?"

The man answered, waving up a hand to gesture to himself, "An Sangeen, " and then at the woman, "That's Na Yonsu. You're at the Seoul research centre and medical bay. You were, _er,"_ he half-shrugged, _"_ getting medical attention."

"Where are my clothes?" Tesamu looked down at the plain grey shorts provided.

"You. Didn't have any," Sangeen explained.

Yonsu made a face at Sangeen. "We'll get you some, don't worry. Just concentrate on not blacking out." She helped him to a seat, wadded through the water and passed over a towel. She spared them both small talk. "We know you're a modified human. But you're not one of ours. And not one of the Union's."

Tesamu chuckled shortly, but was unable to mask the shivering in his voice. "How do you know?"

"Because we're KSA. And you're wanted all over Union personnel." She stuck her phone into his face, showing the decrypted message. The KSA let the Union think that it was under their control. Really, _it was,_ with the kind of power an organisation like the Union had, but some branches were always _secretly rebelling._ The last few incidents Tesamu had glossed over in the reports had proven the KSA were a lot less dependable, and a lot more stupid, than previously thought.

This must have been one of the rogue factions. He counted himself lucky. It was pathetic to. He did not rely on luck and knew never to depend on it. But he let out a breath and counted himself luckily it was the rebel KSA branch that found him.

(Cold, cold water sinking into his skin, searching handprints reaching up his back, rounded pebbles under his knuckles as he clawed his way back to shore. Dark Spear was celebrating. They were hungry, but Tesamu no longer shared that hunger. If he had been left on the wet bank, he knew what would have happened. If he had not been lucky, he would be dead.)

"Anyone wanted by the Union," Sangeen said, reaching for a cigarette in a hospital-equivalent, "Is our new best friend. So, who're you, and what do the Elders want you dead for?"

Tesamu shook his hair out of his face. He eyed the two. This An Sangeen, dressed in a black suit, was middle aged, had greying hair, an unshaven face, and smelt vaguely of smoke of which Tesamu thought was quickly going to double in intensity. This Na Yonsu woman, dressed the same but with her shirt tucked in, leaned on the counter and crossed her arms. Tesamu imagined the two weren't clueless if they acquired high-alert Union denunciations.

"You haven't reported me."

"Nope," Sangeen said, flickering his lighter. "But we have introduced you to our doctor. Don't worry, he's not going to snitch," he reassured. "Not until we mess up."

Tesamu noted the 'until' and not 'unless.' Yonsu walked up to Sangeen, clutched his hand in anger, and slapped the lighter out of it. It landed onto the flooded floor with a 'clop.' Sangeen gestured to the floor and then to his cigarette sadly. He sighed in defeat, chewing on the end of it.

"So, Mister Faust," Yonsu started, and Tesamu was sure the damned alias sounded ludicrous to her. "Why are they after you?"

Tesamu stared at the floor. A few bubbles rose from the submerged lighter.

"If you don't tell us, we can't help you," Sangeen said.

Tesamu blinked up. He smiled. Then he began to laugh. Artificially at first, leaning his face into his hands, his elbows on his knees, just chuckling like the sound of something going watery and damp.

"Hey!" Yonsu's jaw clenched, anger snapping in her voice. "Do you have any idea what we're about to do? What we're goddamned _doing_ , just having you here?! How about you shut it and spit out answers—"

"Yonsu," Sangeen said seriously.

"They're going to wring our necks if they find out — we carry this guy out of a lake in the middle of the night and he—"

"Yonsu," he whispered. Sangeen pointed to Tesamu lowly. "He's crying." He face was buried in his hands, tears streaming between his fingers. The chuckling had died away and become muffled, broken gasps. Yonsu backed down, bewildered. She and Sangeen shared a look.

(We did it? Didn't we? Tesamu said out in the middle of the starless sky. He's dead. He's dead. Tesamu let out a shaky breath, revelling in having the luxury to do so. It was as if he'd gone the last hour without breathing at all, and despite that he didn't feel the need to gasp for it either. He'd never had such a fragile win. Everything so fragile. Forty six point two, zero, zero, zero, north; six point one, five, zero, zero, east…)

"The Noblesse," Tesamu began. He tilted up, unbothered about how he appeared. "Is the Noblesse dead?"

"The No—" Sangeen straightened. "What do you know about him?"

( ** _What did you say?_** Tesamu shivered again, his head, his chest, his fingers freezing, everything freezing, going crystalline. **_'You're just like me.'_** We won. **_He's just like you. You're just like him._** What more do you want? **_Tesaaamu._** Forty— Forty six point, point, he muttered. _)_

 _"Is he dead?"_

He sounded pathetic enough for Yonsu to have to look away. "No," she said. "I know you had some high position in the Union if you know of the Noblesse. I don't know what you want with him. But yes, we contacted the Yeran High principle with the rest of them. He's alive. I'd pity the guy who tries to make it otherwise." Yonsu scoffed. "Have you seen _him_..." she settled on a word, _"...work?"_

(Underwhelming, was what it was. A victory he'd fought for, died for, had given everything for, underwhelming. What was he supposed to feel after he'd murdered him? He wanted to feel relief — he wanted joy and boastfulness and listless release. Dark Spear had always manifested on the Professor as fire, as a burning. Why did it feel so cold? —zero, zero, east.)

Sangeen continued, "He's in his South Korea home — whenever anything wacky like that red rain happens, we KSA contact them. His, _er,_ group, that is. Yeah, their Noblesse kid alive."

The three of them in the room fell into a silence. The sound of water dripping from the broken frame of the healing chamber made ripples in the ankle-high water.

After a long, tense pause, Tesamu nodded. "I see." He got up, rubbed the towel through his hair and breathed. "I'll tell you everything you want to know. I'm wanted by the Union because I was one of their scientists. But I withheld information from them. About Frankenstein — I believe you know him as the Principal of Yeran High School."

Tesamu smiled warmly at them for the first time. "The Union was planning to kill him and extort his powers. I did everything in my power to fight them, even to the point of defecting in the end." He turned his eyes down. "But I failed. Frankenstein is still in danger."

Yonsu and Sangeen turned to one other, giving each other the same look. Sangeen nodded. "Keep talking," he said.

* * *

Spread across the couches with the Kertias' leaning against their respective walls, the household was awfully quiet. Frankenstein couldn't blame them, it was only natural after having them hear exactly what happened. Tao had him caught up to bulleted version of important school and news affairs — they'd handled it well and if he just did a little more tinkering and play his part, it'll be like he never even disappeared from civilisation and was held captive for some months. Brilliant.

In truth, his 'trip to America' was one the most disastrous experiences of his entire, long life. And it had all started circa seven hundred something AD. It was a hard truth to take in, he supposed.

"So?" Frankenstein asked, sipping strong coffee.

Seira put up her hand. She didn't need to do that, but Frankenstein picked her anyway.

"What happened to the base?"

"Destroyed."

She nodded approvingly.

Tao shot up his hand. "What happened to the people, then?"

"Wiped."

He put his hand down, almost taken aback by that. Taken aback as if he expected something worse, that they deserved worse. He nodded in understanding.

From the corner, Rajak raised his hand up, imitating the others. "And Ignes Kravei, are you sure…"

"Deceased," Frankenstein said.

Rajak put down his hand and tugged on his mask, storing away the information.

"Then what about Raizel-nim?" All heads turned to the other corner, where Rael had detached from leaning on the wall. "When will he wake up?"

"Rael—" Rajak started.

"No, it's a fair question, Rajak." Frankenstein got up, paced a few steps before turning his attentions to the household. They'd all been waiting for the story to conclude and saved this question for the very end, but now that they were here, no one knew what to say.

"First…first of all, I'm not bonded to Master—to _him_ anymore, so I can't feel when he's about to wake up. Secondly," Frankenstein inhaled and made a face. "His life force is at the expense of using his powers. One's life force is essentially what a being is made of, in noble terms. As long as it exists, the noble exists. That's why soul weapons are able to be summoned into physical forms."

"I understand but," Regis said.

"Wait." Someone shuffled uneasily on the couch.

Frankenstein turned to M-21.

"Are you saying…we know his power is tied to his soul, but now...he's been living on half of what he had before?" M-21 said rather flatly.

"Yes." The understanding that glossed over his face wasn't a happy one. He didn't want to correct it, but right now M-21 wouldn't be wrong to say it was less than half.

"So you understand, M-21," Frankenstein said seriously, "that we need to find the most plausible excuse on the face of the earth for his disappearance to his class mates."

The mood didn't lighten.

"Alright, but," Takeo piped up, shifting on the couch, "just answer this question, Frankenstein. Is Raizel-nim going to wake up within the children's lifetimes?"

"I…" Frankenstein faltered.

"What about within our lifetimes?" Tao asked quietly.

Frankenstein slumped into a seat. Slowly, he leaned forward, burying his head in his hands.

"Ok, that's ok," Tao said. "We get it, he just needs to—"

"Yes," Frankenstein answered.

"Huh?"

"He'll wake up as soon as he's physically, minimally able. Even if that's a detriment." Frankenstein shot them a look. "He's going to wake up soon, I imagine."

* * *

His house, inhabited by 11 people, was scarily, clinically clean on a molecular level. Everybody performed their jobs far too happily that it was almost getting on Frankenstein's nerves. The shoes were perfectly polished, lined up as if to a ruled line and he hadn't seen the floor shine to this blinding degree before. The house permanently smelt like soft spearmint and lemon. Takeo had made the kitchen spotless. Really, he made everything spotless.

Even M-21 had started to vacuum when it was usually assigned to Takeo. Everywhere he looked, Frankenstein couldn't find a single, nit-picking complaint. The curtains were dusted, the loose thread on it cut, the windows wiped, every tile of the bathroom specifically sanitised. Rael and Rajak had chipped in and they were eager (at Rajak's pointed behest) to take care of the laundry. The ballet tickets had been discovered by Regis in the letterbox on his gardening run. Frankenstein still hoped they could be put to use.

It also transpired that he was significantly poorer since he'd last disappeared. Tao had hacked into his budget, the too-smart-for-his-own-good thing, and blown through it for security and technology that made it seem like Frankenstein was at places he was really not. There were updated security measures for classrooms, cameras in the commons and Frankenstein hoped that this fully operable 'lock down mode' was still within board regulations. Tao mumbled something about 'well, you told me to check the security.' There were entire panic rooms concealed under the gyms, apparently able to withstand an airstrike. It was not really a comforting thought, but he appreciated the sentiment.

Tao then used his money and overspecialised cameras stopping petty bullying that crossed his monitors — because bullying? In his school? — Frankenstein couldn't even be angry at him if he wanted to. (The last time security was weakened after hours, he'd been attacked in his own office. Well, Frankenstein attacked first, but.) The school was effectively untouchable, maybe be a safer place than his reinforced labs under the house at this point.

Muzaka and Lunark had taken to living on the fourth floor down. By now, Frankenstein had caught up on everything that had happened in the time he was missing, including the help that Muzaka and Lunark had provided. According to the Union, Muzaka was a wild card and Lunark was a fugitive. Only Tesamu and Ignes were in on the plan to murder the Noblesse from the start. Lunark had been extra muscle, blindly following a tyrant Elder. Frankenstein decided not to dwell on it since it was clear where her allegiances were, but there was slight tension whenever he crossed her in the corridors — it simply would take time for him to get used to.

It might have begun to slightly irk him. When Frankenstein so much as picked up a used cup, someone would swoop in and save his five step walk to the sink. It turned out Seira and Tao took turns looking over school forms and the paperwork mountain he'd expected to drown in. He was a little horrified when he went back to school and work was _non existent._ He couldn't even fold some bath towels or wipe a table, and it was getting ridiculous that he couldn't even be left to buy the groceries alone. (Regis and Seira politely insisted they accompany him. Closely. Touching shoulders, almost.) With no work to drown in, there was nothing stopping him from becoming an idle overthinker.

And what was worse, Frankenstein had lost every single verbal battle with all living in his house. "Take a break. I insist. Get out of my kitchen, I'll do the plates."

"Frankenstein," Takeo murmured, "let me. You went through a lot."

"M-21, I'm not so weak that you standing in front of me can actually stop me."

"You died, Prof."

"Tao, give me my papers, I think I can sign my own name on some certificates."

"Boss, you were _deceased."_

"It's no big deal, Regis."

"I agree, death is no big deal, Principal."

How were you supposed to argue back with: _you died?_

 _And we all mourned you._

Even 'you died,' sounded better than, 'you were held captive for months.' It wasn't like they were treating him as if he were made of glass, but — just nicer. He wasn't really sure what Rajak and Rael were doing as 'ambassadors' of Lukedonia, but washing bathrooms was the least popular job in the house and it was getting done.

* * *

Gejutel turned up one day.

Frankenstein went to get the door. Regis made a huge effort to overtake him. "I'll get it!"

Regis opened the newly installed electric door and Gejutel stepped in uninvited. "Gaju-nim, you're here."

"You," Frankenstein sneered.

"You," Gejutel stated, "are alive." They stood there ardently, eyeing one another. Regis looked between them and decided to slink away.

Gejutel came forward and awkwardly put his hands on ether side of Frankenstein's shoulders. "Wonderful."

Frankenstein looked at Gejutel's bejewelled grip. And then at his carefully blanked face. "Truly," Frankenstein said. "To what do I owe this unprecedented, great pleasure?"

"As abrasive as always," Gejutel said, letting go. "You come back from the dead and the first thing you do is affront me."

"I treated you a common pleasantry," Frankenstein made a face, "Pray, which word has insulted you? 'Truely?' 'Pleasure?' or 'Great?'"

Gejutel grumbled, flitting a hand over his facial hair. "I know you're saying something ugly — just because I do not understand what yet doesn't mean I am tone-deaf."

Frankenstein sighed to cover a snort and feigned annoyance when he waved him to the seats.

Gejutel took a seat. "Anyhow, I see you are well. That is good."

"Good, is it?" Frankenstein huffed. He crossed his arms. "There's no excuse for me to go if you're still going to keep kicking, old fool."

"Hm, a little more upfront. I thought they'd done something and made you less insufferable. What frightful a notion."

"Oh, so you've missed me after all, is that it?" Frankenstein offered him a wry smirk. "I'd expect nothing less than ritual condolences, a frame of my picture in the gallery of eternal sleepers, and a statue in my honour in central Landegre land."

Gejutel sighed lengthily. "I mourned you, too, Frankenstein."

Frankenstein nearly choked on his spit. He shouldn't have tried to joke so hard lest it was entirely true and his so-called death was an important event. After all, he'd heard how the clan leaders had all leapt from their kingdom and rushed to help _him._

"…So…perhaps," Gejutel went on sagely, "Perhaps we had our differences in the past, but I must say it was reassuring to find you in this place a few years ago. More so now. Perhaps if I had lent a hand to my grandson's caretaker, things would hardly have gone so awry."

Frankenstein blinked, not sure what to say. One death scare and Gejutel and he were on 'talking about their own mortality' terms?

Gejutel nodded agreeably to himself. "I want to be someone trustworthy enough to hear from you."

Frankenstein sighed, but not unkindly. "There was no possible moment I could have sent word, Gejutel," Frankenstein closed his eyes. "I never told _him._ Nor the kids. I chose to deal with it myself." He paused a moment, thinking that he didn't want to say something he'd regret in the future. But then he went ahead, Frankenstein curled his lips and huffed, "We're both too proud."

"Too proud?" Gejutel chuckled like a deep-under quake. "Before, yes. So many things happened and yet we still squabble like petty men."

"You, more so."

"Frankenstein…"

"All I said was a nice, nice, _pleasantry."_

 _"Ehem."_ Gejutel smiled. "I'm glad you found Raizel-nim in that house," he said.

"I'm glad you were never a traitor," Frankenstein said. He swallowed. "I should never have treated you as so."

Gejutel shook his head intently. "No. I deserve no apologies, when I tracked you down through those woods and refused to listen to the truth you'd fought for."

"And now we're here."

"Yes. Still fighting the same enemies."

Franken and Gejutel sat opposite each other some more.

"That necklace you're wearing," Gejutel said, and Frankenstein's hand flew to touch it.

"Its," he said, "Just an old keepsake."

"It's the one Urokai held during your fight."

* * *

"Frankenstein," Raizel tried to get up from his seat, but Frankenstein moved fast and went to stand in front of him. He wasn't in any state to be moving when he was weak to the point of losing grip on a teacup.

"Yes, Sir Raizel?"

In the pale candlelight, Raizel smiled, warm but timid. He uncurled the fist in his lap, revealing a small, glinting necklace. A valueless piece of obsidian ore. Worth less than one of the hinges that held his curtains. "This…" Raizel started, and then paused. "I believe this is yours."

Tears began to well in Frankenstein's eyes. Frankenstein moved, snatching the necklace out of his palm. Raizel's outstretched hand was shoved away.

"I..." Frankenstein looked between his fist, and Raizel. _"I…"_

 _He knew what happened he asked those people he stayed outside to find it he kept it for him._

"You don't need to say anything," Raizel said quietly. He pulled back his hand. Raizel began to furl backwards into himself, withdrawing from all the space he'd dared take in the gesture. "It belongs to you now." He didn't smile this time, but instead gave Frankenstein with an honest, careful look. The damage of Frankenstein's rampage was so fresh. "Let it be a memory. And if it be a memory, let it be a happy one."

" _I need to go."_

* * *

"Yes," Frankenstein said. "An old keepsake of the Zeroth. You must have heard from the others about him."

Gejutel's mouth propped open, but he said no more.

"I'm sorry, Frankenstein."

"Oh," Frankenstein scoffed, "Don't start."

Gejutel lingered a moment, opening and then closing his mouth. "Then I won't," Gejutel got up, ready to leave, "For we are still too proud to speak of such things."

"What would you do?" Frankenstein said loudly, suddenly, "If it was your dead Landegre heir — if it was Roussare?!"

Gejutel turned back to him, an expression Frankenstein had never seen on his old, weathered face. There was none of the anger he'd been expecting. Frankenstein felt cheated of it. "If it were my son," Gejutel said quietly, "it would be my duty to stop him."

Frankenstein shut his eyes, and then opened them again. "Of course it would, _of-bloody-course._ I mean, what would you _do?"_

Gejutel pondered for a moment. "If Roussare was a traitor, it would be my duty to induce him into eternal sleep."

"But he's your son."

"I know," Gejutel said. Gejutel got up, heading towards the door. "But Frankenstein, I do not have the luxury to speak of such things when my son is, as you've quite plainly put it, _dead."_

Frankenstein thought he ought to apologise to him, but Gejutel just smiled understandingly, shaking his head. "I'm very glad to see you, friend."

Frankenstein waved him goodbye from the couch from the back. Then, not wanting to think about it anymore, not wanting to play it safe or keep to his masks, got up and spun around, facing Gejutel before he was gone. "And I, you."

* * *

Notes

Thank you for your comments guys, reviews are love. I just want to say - don't worry, Rai isn't going to be down for long. The thing Tesamu was reciting was the coordinates Franken gave him to his research, it's mentioned in chapter 28. And the necklace Franken is wearing he got from chapter 34 when he went back to the house before going to the lake.

I really like An Sangeen and Na Yonsu, there's just something so appealing about happily married secret agents. In fic I have the power to make Gejutel and Franken admit that they're friends. Good, somewhat begrudging, best buds. Special thanks for those who let me know about typos etc - you guys save the day. I'm sure I can update in November, so see you until then!


	39. Prof

I am back and I am sorry, this is clearly not November. I've done lots of shuffling chapters about to find the best order and revived some stuff from deleted scenes. I was almost going to name this Student-Teacher interviews 2.

* * *

 **8th Century**

 **Gregorian Calendar DCC**

 **Year 800**

Underground Once More

The sounds echoed off the walls, rebounding again and again to make that chorus of whispers and footsteps reverberate through the labyrinth. It was hideous and low, like it was all trapped in the stone, forcing its way out. The noise split into pieces as strangers that didn't know better went down multiple dead ends at once. They were already here. It was already too late.

Tesamu's own set of footsteps battered down the hallway, down the staircase, loud and stark behind him like something giving chase. He had never been afraid of this place, but now he had never been more afraid of a place than here.

"Professor!" _Professor._ "Professor, you have to get away!" _Professor, you have to…_

Tesamu burst through the door. Firelight caught his eye and he froze. The Professor's back was turned on him.

 _…get away_

"I know," he said, slow and resolute.

"What?"

Something was off. Silhouetted by the fire, the Professor's frame looked thin and dark. The light was so close that it made it stressful to look directly at him, but Tesamu was too surprised to stop staring. The Professor was holding something in his hand that he studied. A small, black book, its label obscured by the shadows leaping quickly in rhythm with the fire. The Professor tightened his hold on it ever so slightly, something Tesamu wouldn't have noticed had he not been staring fixedly close. The tiny motion lit the book aflame. It was a cold, yellow flame that grew and grew until it became red and dark. He'd only said two words to Tesamu, but the feeling of something being _off_ never went away.

The Professor tossed the book into the pile, helping the bonfire in the heart of their fort along. Fire engulfed the mess of paper and files. Light poured onto the walls until there was hardly a shadow in the room.

"…You already planned to leave?" Tesamu muttered behind him.

 _The Professor had seen this coming. He'd planned in advance. He was ready to abandon the place. He'd known._

Another feeling gushed out from behind closed doors inside Tesamu, seeping from the cracks until every delicate thing crashed under the weight. He felt lost amid something chilling. Every part of him wanted to run, wanted to hide, wanted to bury himself alive for the shame of it. _Since when did he know?_ _How much did he know?_

 _"Professor?"_

"Tesamu, you shouldn't call me that."

Tesamu flinched. "But—"

"It's enough to warrant your death," he said suddenly. The Professor didn't turn to face Tesamu, only shifted in his direction. "Promise me. Never tell anyone that I was your mentor. You should not think of me in that way."

Tesamu broke away, unable to hold his stare.

"You've been sent to watch me, so you shouldn't have much problems with them if you don't do anything suspicious."

Tesamu faltered.

"You _…knew?"_

 _He knew this too. But did he know all of it? Did he know how Tesamu had worked and bled to stay and watch over him, keep him useful to the Union so they could never have the excuse to storm this place, and murder and stake him like he heard the Union promise, that he smiled and nodded along to._

They all saw different things in Tesamu. His masters thought he was a willing mole, digging for their dirt with slavish eagerness. He was their obedient, prized-asset that would be used so long as they found him useful. His Professor thought he was a spineless, snivelling thing that had sold him out from the very beginning, not really a betrayal if he'd never been on his side.

A heat burned behind Tesamu's eyes.

 _You knew,_ it finally echoed, quiet.

"That's not worth your worrying about," the Professor said, laying out a sure, cold fact. "You've done an admirable job supplying them with information."

And he added, "You've done well. You'll be safe."

Tears began to run down Tesamu's face, wetting the collar of his coat, the tips of his shoes.

"… _I'm sorry_ …I—"

"I don't have time to listen to excuses," the Professor said calmly. "Take this."

The Professor shifted a little more, pressing the note into his cold hands.

"It's the location where I've stored everything you'll need."

Tesamu looked down, the corners of the paper note trembling.

When Tesamu looked up again, he couldn't see the Professor's face. He never turned around. He didn't want to.

The Professor huffed, a light and jovial gesture.

Tesamu thought suddenly that it was his voice that had caught him so off guard. His voice hadn't changed — it was still the calm and reassuring thing that had gotten Tesamu through the worst, cold nights, the thing that anchored him to a sense of safety. It was the kind, warm voice that had told him stories in bed until he fell asleep, that had never been raised for fear of hurting him, especially on accident. The Professor talked evenly, in the same tone that he would asking Tesamu if he'd eaten, or if his day had gone well. It was _off,_ and yet, it wasn't.

Amidst the mismatched scene before Tesamu, completely unhurriedly, the Professor said, "You wanted to be a person that helps others, isn't that right? Use what I've given you wisely."

Tesamu couldn't feel his fingers. He couldn't really feel the tears cooling on his face either. All he could focus on was what was before his eyes — the fire growing more rampant by the second, the intruders undoubtedly closing in behind him, the Professor walking away from him, forever.

In a moment of desperation, Tesamu scrunched the note in his fist, breaking out of his paralysis.

"Wait!"

He didn't even dare call him _Professor,_ then.

 _Wait._

The Professor stopped, but did not acknowledge him.

"Take me with you. Please, take me with you."

With a sharp, sudden movement, the Professor disappeared, reappearing on the other side of the bonfire. In a sweeping motion, he spilled the burning materials over the floor, dividing the room with fire and smoke.

 _"Wait!"_ Tesamu yelled, his chest bursting with it.

But Tesamu was on one side and Professor Frankenstein was on the other. The bout of aura from his hands was so gold and bright it blinded Tesamu now. Tears still clouded his eyes, everything was blurred and irresolute. The Professor's figure glanced back, a brief survey of the room. He said nothing as he left.

* * *

 **'Prof.'**

"Frankenstein?"

After they'd cleared the table after dinner, M-21 knocked twice on the glass sliding door and let himself out.

Frankenstein looked up from leaning on the veranda railing. _"M-21?"_

There was a fraction of a second where M-21's eyes narrowed and Frankenstein quickly blanked his face. M-21 had reacted to the surprise in his voice. The surprise of someone who had spent much time taking back his first words to him at the lake, after he'd found out the extent of how he'd hurt him. It wasn't that Frankenstein had been avoiding him. They saw each other every day, discussed school work and went grocery shopping when it was called for. It was just that no matter how hard Frankenstein thought about it, he couldn't bring himself to a right conclusion.

"Please," Frankenstein said, offering M-21 the fantastic option of leaning and brooding darkly on the veranda while he figured out what to say to him.

They stood there side by side with some space between them. The clouds were moving fast overhead, big blotches that were visible to the eye due to the vast amount of stars that backdropped it. Frankenstein watched them disappear and reappear. It was just bright enough for Frankenstein to see in his black and white world.

"I had a lot to think about while I was gone," Frankenstein started. "About Master, Faust, and not least, how I _broke your clavicle, 'a couple' of ribs, an arm, and a toe,"_ he said with unflinching forwardness.

"Yeah. Me too," M-21 grunted. He yawned and slunk, resting his chin on the top of the wooden railing.

Frankenstein didn't know what was the right way to proceed. "I want to apologise."

"Keep it. I don't want it."

"Then I suppose you're here for revenge."

"If I was, I wouldn't have knocked," M-21 said tersely, "Prof."

Frankenstein chuckled. "Must you call me that? I believe my qualifications since the last time I've been a professor have… _lapsed."_

"Maybe it's how I do revenge." M-21 couldn't resist a smirk. He shot it in Frankenstein's direction, showing pointed teeth. "I know you self-destructed. l know you're sorry. And I don't need your apology for breaking my bones. Gathering all the evidence we have, it's safe to say, with our luck, they were going to break anyway," M-21 said in one continuous, flat note.

Frankenstein didn't agree to that. "That's immaterial," he said, his eyes narrowing. Above head, stars blinked quietly before the clouds threw them again into darkness. Another moment of silence came between them before Frankenstein looked clean away, ashamed. "I was angry. I...I want you to know I could have moved you out of harm's way without doing _extensive bodily harm."_ There was a downtrodden feeling to his voice. _"_ I hurt you because I failed to control myself, M-21; and that's no excuse for how I treated you, and I don't know how to make it up to you." Frankenstein took in a small breath. "I _am_ sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you."

M-21 considered his words. "I was angry too."

Frankenstein's brows furrowed. He'd paid no attention to what he didn't want to hear and only answered the part he chose to. M-21 rolled his shoulders and looked sharply downward, some of his silver hair falling forward to hide his eyes. In the dim light, it looked white to Frankenstein.

Sometimes, being honest was the hardest thing for Frankenstein. Being honest about how he'd wasted time, about how he'd become some sort addict by indulging in too much of Dark Spear, or that no matter how hard he tried he couldn't fix everything alone. Now watching someone else be honest was harder than that.

"You were right, of course," M-21 admitted bitterly. "I couldn't fight that cyborg guy. I'd have gotten shredded. I was just fucking angry at you leaving. You always make such a big deal about taking down opponents together in the field, about having each other's backs. You drilled it into our minds, Takeo, Tao and I, but then go off and get yourself screwed up."

Frankenstein huffed loudly, quelling inappropriate laughter at a very unfunny subject. The gesture rubbed M-21 the wrong way. His eyes narrowed, lips pulling back far enough to show the extra canines in his line of teeth. He made a noise akin to a growl.

"I hate that you yelled at Tao, I hate that you nearly burnt Takeo to a crisp, but they've already forgiven you and so have I! We knew you were acting out." M-21 bent his head abruptly, his hair falling and dangling freely for a moment before he bobbed up again. "I just wish I knew how to help you. I jumped into a losing fight because I wanted to — _do something._ But I didn't," he corrected himself, and then looked at Frankenstein with more honesty than he afforded to himself, _"I don't know how to help you like you helped me."_

Frankenstein swallowed, giving himself a moment to untangle something like a knot in his throat. Somewhat startled by M-21, baring his heart on his sleeve like this, he nodded tentatively. "I...understand. You've done more for me than you know." He smirked a little. "You jumped into a dangerous fight for me." Frankenstein's smirk froze there, not yet stretched into a full smile, and broke. "Never do that again."

"Things don't always go how you want it to." M-21 was thinking about how he'd reacted by transforming, how that very same day was the last time he saw Frankenstein.

Frankenstein was thinking about how his adrenaline had amplified, turning every sensible nerve against him in a seething moment of fear. The moment where M-21 leapt in front of him. "No. It doesn't."

M-21 made a face, turning up a corner of his lip. "I'm sorry it had to be Tesamu," M-21 said, and Frankenstein immediately went rigid. " _He_ told us everything."

 _"He_ told you everything?" Frankenstein started, and M-21 turned to him with wide eyes.

"He told you that I let a spy stay with me out of sentiment? That I didn't do good enough getting an innocent away from the Union?" he said, simple words making him turn heated, manic, almost, "or that everything Tesamu built his life on is everything that _I_ instilled in him?!"

M-21 had gotten up from the leaning on the rails. Instead, he clutched onto the wood, denting it with a taut grip. His brow furrowed, shifting shadows on his face and changing the look in his eye to something incredulous and exaggerated. "Let me get this straight. You're going to blame hundreds of years of Faust's immoral experiments and homicidal intent, on your _primary-to-intermediate school education way back when?"_

M-21 rolled his eyes into the back of his head and sighed at the bushes. "It sounds like a broad hypothesis, Prof."

Frankenstein closed his eyes, grimacing. "I hated nobles, M-21."

M-21's expression flickered. He turned, watching Frankenstein with a strange look.

Frankenstein's lip quirked up painfully. "I designed Dark Spear to kill nobles. No matter how Dark Spear ended up coming into being, my intent was to kill — _all of them,"_ he said, his voice going quiet. "I was convinced all the woes of the world, _mutants,_ were borne from nobles who didn't care about humans at all. How incredible is that?" Frankenstein asked to the sky, not expecting an answer. "Condemning every single one of them for the actions of six traitor clan leaders. Imagine a child growing up with that man. Imagine a child thinking the world of a man like _that."_ Frankenstein swallowed, huffing sharply, like he couldn't hold in breath. "I made Tesamu out of my prejudices. Tesamu is the man I would have been if I'd continued on that path. Don't you get it?" Frankenstein said, jeering, almost.

"M-21, I don't _deserve_ to be called 'Professor.' I won't ever let myself be a mentor to anyone." Frankenstein slammed his hands down on the railing, clutching them until his knuckles went white. " I ruined Tesamu. My research created the Union. I created _you."_

"Bullshit, Frankenstein!" M-21 shot up, glaring at him, his knuckles cracking under his stress. "Maniacs created me! Shit decisions created Tesamu. You've been living your life trying to make up for other people's goddamned mistakes."

M-21 swallowed, looking Frankenstein in the eye. "They stole from you. I know it's had utter shit repercussions, but they stole your research and made something.. _.perverted_ out of it." Suddenly, M-21 pulled himself off the railing, straightening his back into a full height that matched Frankenstein's. M-21 flung out his arms lazily, making a little spectacle of himself.

"I know because I'm right here, Professor," M-21 said, gruff. "I'm a _proud child-kidnapper and witness killer._ I've _murdered_ people for the Union. I thought that was the right thing to do, too. But M-24 and I were goddamned wrong — and we goddamned changed."

Frankenstein's eyes went wide and accusatory. M-21's entire body stiffened in the way that it did before a fight, and what was a fight unless someone wanted clearly to get their point across like M-21 did now?

"I don't get you, sometimes, Boss," M-21 said, slowing down, angered but trying not to cause a scene. He slouched again, his shoulders dropping and losing the tension, his frame growing a size smaller. "Remember when I first got here? When it was just me, here. I had the whole floor to myself," he said, grinning, very impressed by his own joke. "But I felt like paying for everything I've done. Like M-24 did. And you said, in the most condescending, _but somehow, reassuring way,_ that I was. That changing, that — somehow — taking a security job at a school was enough."

Something in Frankenstein's jaw jumped, but M-21 went on, never giving him a chance to interrupt.

"If everything you touched really turned to ashes, I'd be the first one in the ground." M-21 sighed and cocked his head back towards the house. "You said you wouldn't be a teacher to anyone else. It looks like the rest of those guys turned out fine."

Frankenstein shifted as prompted, looking towards where M-21's line of sight was. Indoors, Tao lifted his packet of shrimp flavoured chips up as Regis walked pass. Regis, immediately registering the insult, froze and retraced his steps, to which Tao reciprocated by lifting his chips higher. Takeo and Seira ignored them, continuing on with their conversation as if a physical fight was not breaking out, right beside them, as they left the room.

"And last I checked, I'm not an axe-murder," M-21 mumbled and shrugged, a side-note.

Very suddenly, M-21 closed his eyes tight and looked to the ceiling. He scoffed painfully after a moment to himself. "God. I don't even know why I said that. Axe-murderers aren't even that far off the crazy chart. We beat one up like days ago. _Mughh."_

He paced sideways again, turning left-right while keeping his eyes on Frankenstein from behind a veil of fringe. On anyone else, it would have looked like a predatory move, someone sizing Frankenstein up with concentrated force. But the difference was that this was M-21. M-21 who disregarded simple warnings, jumped into battles to get hit in the place of his friends, and used all that concentrated force in the most convoluted way possible to admit that he, too, was a student. "Besides, you're making no sense. You're a principal. _A principal,_ Prof. "

Frankenstein wanted to tell him stop. He wanted to tell him it was enough. He also wanted to tell him thank you and it's alright I'm ok now, and put a reassuring hand on M-21's shoulder. But Frankenstein remained where he was, rooted to the spot, thinking it was strange but not odd that M-21 could be so riled over this. He wanted so much to believe him. But M-21 had never had a choice since he woke up a blank slate in some unknown Union lab, stolen and violated in the way Frankenstein had once been so deathly terrified of, had started modifying himself because of it, and Frankenstein's choices had paved its way to this moment — to another one of his students yelling at him, trying so hard to sway him because they cared.

 _(No one had ever cared to help him except Raizel. And his Tesamu. Now he left once and all his so-called tenants and employees mourned and bled on the inside.)_

In the dark of the sheltered veranda, close enough to be affected by moths flying around the nearest streetlamp that was making it flicker, Frankenstein's eyes began to water. M-21 would never see in this light.

M-21 droned on, losing the rage in his voice to something soft and rasped. "You spent these past years making me understand that I'm not the Union, Prof. I'm not whatever they made me to be," he said, awkwardly gesturing to himself, and then dropping his hands when he saw what he was doing. "You're not someone who's misguided and hates nobles, you're not that guy who made Dark Spear to kill nobles anymore. I've changed. You've changed. Tesamu _hasn't._ And that's on him."

Frankenstein took a step back, crashing his back heavily into the wall of the house. He leaned on it, his hair shifting as he turned to M-21. "...It's a joke, how I didn't recognise my own powers the moment Tesamu walked into my office that night. He was right about that. I'd changed so much I couldn't…" Frankenstein trailed off. "What should I do, M-21?" he asked suddenly.

M-21 went up to him, unfolding his arms, but didn't answer.

"The answer should be obvious," Frankenstein told him. "But I don't want to kill him."

"Yeah." M-21 moved, braced his hands on the veranda railing, and leaned back on it. He let himself rest opposite Frankenstein. "I don't know either," he said, quiet. "But I do know that it doesn't matter what you taught him or wanted him to do — he chose to be Union. And for that, he's responsible." M-21 paused for a moment, pursing this lips. Then he looked down, opened his mouth, and continued in an awful, haunted voice. "He _hurt_ you, Prof. And he hurt Raizel."

M-21 pursed his lips, then straightened. "You can't keep treating him like a child."

Frankenstein smiled weakly. He'd noticed a while ago that M-21 was the only one who addressed Raizel directly at times. After all his attempts to apologise, here was M-21 telling him what he didn't know he needed to hear. Indoors, the noise of petty bickering and chip bags got louder. Frankenstein huffed and heaved himself off the wall.

"M-21?"

"Hm?"

"Thank you."

"Yeah. Don't mention it."

"Let's go in," Frankenstein gestured to the sliding door. "...I don't need my security guards to get colds," he added lately.

M-21 shook his head. "As you pointed out, my chronic shirtlessness has built me up resistance to the cold," he said evenly. M-21's eyes narrowed in anticipation of a reaction.

Frankenstein couldn't help but let out the snort he was holding in. It might have been hypocritical of him to have pointed that out about M-21, looking at his own track record. The only difference was that he was pretentious enough to conjure clothes from thin air.

 _"Get in."_

"Yes, Prof."

* * *

Beneath the many floors of a daintily lit home, there was a secret hall that's guard was all the knights of the house, who dutifully kept watch at this post they would never abandon, not for a moment; and in that hall there was a gleaming coffin, something that could only be described as beautiful; not morbid, nor deathly, but alive and _beautiful;_ and in that coffin that shut away a bleeding power that emanated unbidden from within, there lied a sleeping lover.

He took a soft breath, and stirred.

* * *

Notes

vita8881 - Hiiii! They always treated Franken nice but it doesn't hurt to be extra extra nice after coming back from the dead. Thanks!

PeasantThePeasant - Thank you, hopefully the next one won't require you to wait so long

general zargon - 'Killing him with kindness' what a line tbh. And yes, Franken and Gejutel petty-but-well-meaning-friends is what I like. Thank u

i - It's a huge shame you don't have an account cos I super wanted to reply the moment you reviewed but ahhh! Thanks so much for commenting on style and Feelings. I love using flowery, over the top language to get something across and I'm glad you like it too. My favourite line is the very last 83-word line because I really enjoy hearing rhythm in words. It's not like I count the number of syllables or anything - its like, when you read a good line and it's just _pleasing_ to read, thats The Goal. (I know, an 83 word line? I like to live dangerously.) The thing about Noblesse that captured me is most certainly the characters :) Thank you for reviewing.

Laryna6 - I've got to credit you later cos it's pretty much as you said. Anyhow, I am about to fulfil your wish and you will love/hate it. Yes, you caught that Franken corrected himself and isn't calling Rai master. Yea. Tao: I didn't check those security cameras even though it wasn't really going to help but Franken told me to? Tao, later: More security cameras. Disaster relief precautions. Anti bullying campaign. Doing things, anything, to use brainpower and protect the school. Gejutel gets whiplash suddenly understanding Franken, knowing exactly how he feels. They both had sons they lost. And yes, friends admit they're friends :)

a-ravenclaw-marauder - 'let TESAMU FACE JUSTICE' good line, thanks for letting me see this in a review how absolutely DELIGHTFUL

ococo - You read the entire fic in 3 nights?! I hope it was a good cry and a good read omg, it means so much to me.

Pandora-Twists - I want to go back and clean up the earlier chapters for its awkwardness lol, but hearing this from you was so lovely. We need more character interaction in canon too - where did that go?

M.A.C - Franken lowkey stops calling Rai master but no one picks up on it yet...I know, that's pretty terrible. Thank!

asdfghjkl - People are so divided about Tesamu and I am loving it to be honest. I'm glad you find him a compelling character who might have redemption. Angst is My Passion.

We're up to chapter 488 of Noblesse as of now. If it's revealed that first elder really is Tesamu I will be very pleased. (I mean, he's evil, of course. But it will be pleasing.)


	40. Mourning Star

Disclaimer: This has no affiliation with actual Noblesse.

* * *

Mourning Star

He thought it would always end there in the frigid, grasping cold. Lain in the whiteness, his cheeks brushing against the ice, it still hurt. He longed for the numbness that would come later, perhaps dull the taste of old blood on his tongue. It would end in cold: soft tufts landing in his hair, hard ground beneath his fingers. Red against white was the most striking, grabbing thing he had ever seen. When he was down on the ground, snow beating around his body, he couldn't keep his eyes off of it. Coldness had a way with making wounds that weren't there, forming flowers of snow that didn't die so easily. The snowflakes settled over his eyelids, making frost jut from his lashes.

It should have ended there.

But it didn't.

For more than a thousand years, he had never seen snow.

Never touched it, never consciously thought of it, never imagined it, and if he tried, he might have forgotten its crunch. In his dreams, it once never snowed. He had banished the whiteness away with his childhood. But now it came back haunted.

He might have swallowed the summer once. Tesamu experimented on himself, stole the blaze of the sun like a tip of the match, shone next to a darkness most divine, and it showed in his ferocious smile. Quick-minded, with a quirked smirk, Tesamu was afraid of so much, and that was why he was so good at pretending. All his youth a prim, sightly masquerade, and he could wear that mask so well. They found a hazard of a boy buried in the tempest, dressed him up in flimsy clothes and heroic thoughts, fed and watered a dandelion to fight and fall. Icarus feared the sun; Icarus didn't dare look at the sea. So he flew, and flew and flew, with wings still too large for him to use. They praised him as priceless, and naturally, that put a price on his pretty head — as long as he was useful in more ways than just a one-off experiment, a bastard escapade, he could keep his mind.

The whispers came back with teeth: _do you know what kind of a man that monster is? Do you know what kind of a joke his achilles heel is? Do you know?_

 _Tesamu-dear?_

What did it all mean, if the traitor was the kindest man he ever knew? Packed with an arsenal made up of neat white lies, it got harder and harder to be the golden boy his Professor wanted. Salvaged from beneath the ruins of a plot he could only begin to understand, Tesamu contemplated disobedience in his warm bed, in his labyrinthine home, beside his caring teacher — the most daunting thing since sabotage. Debunking wishing stars and superstitions with a teacher that showed him the real monsters that never graced beneath his bed, he decided to tighten his lips, stop sending crows to his masters so frequently.

Niceties to him was like a chemical dull — and boy, the Professor was nice. Day in, day out, his numbered days revolved around Tesamu; he called him a smart thing, and that was what Tesamu had only ever wanted to remain. Could a soldier be corrupted with a few pats on the head? Could a seamless spy be destroyed by home-baked apple pastries? He learnt more than he'd ever dared to hope for, made a maestro of himself under the Professor's tutelage. It was there that he learnt to shine. He used it to shine in people's eyes. And he used his light to be an arsonist.

Always feeling like his back was against a wall, always with his hands secured behind his back, he was slaying the monsters without lifting a finger, something of a whisper on his lips to deliver a death sentence. Wandering thoughts caught up with reality, spun into so many casualties in too little a time. Where the lies piled up, piled up, enough for a mountain to climb, he was sure kept in the dark until he was bright enough to figure it all out himself. Bringing his dowry of knowledge and codes and tender-fresh betrayal back to his enemies from his enemies' enemy, he was a trove for information and preemption, a tactic for retaliation and conspiracy.

Young Prince Midas — whatever he produced was gold to them. And the secrets kept spilling, finding their place in strangers hands where he gave it willingly; the secrets kept turning the tides that never seemed to fall. How easy was it to lie to a liar? And find a way past the dogma, disregard all the dreary sides for one more — one man whom they said wasn't really one anymore. He dared to think those dangerous thoughts. Dared to turn his sword on his masters — all of them, and himself. Dared to sheath it away where it suited him and he played that game with his life. With the cards he was dealt, he flipped the tarots to make his own bets come through, and not others. He'd change his star sign, too, if he could shift those odds.

Tesamu had grit his teeth and deceived the Professor, and then turned around to deceive his masters. He had bowed his head while rewording the orders given to him just so. When asked to report back he sent useless and incomplete information that could never make sense broken apart. He had stayed and prolonged this artificially-made-futile mission in order to keep his eye on both the Professor and those who were after him — putting them both just out of reach of each other. Tesamu had sabotaged his mission in every single way he could in order to save the Professor's life. Despite all that had been instilled in him, he had chosen who's side he was on.

The one whom Tesamu had really betrayed, out of his own free will, was the Union.

And no one ever found out. Not even the Professor.

His body grew tall, his humour grew grim, his eyes went cold and he turned into the very thing his mother had died for, telling him to _run._ Descending into madness, into the wretched grave of what he was supposed to be — was trained to be, convinced himself he still was, somehow — it was never enough. And the blood danced like dye in those test tubes, vibrant and beautiful and the colour of the death he sowed to bloom. Was it worth it? The decay, the double-edgedness of his ambition, stretching far beyond his horizons, full of poison, full of poise. Icarus, who stayed long enough away from the burning until now.

With the corpse of his past holding high, his chin, the remembrances of his childhood flashed before his golden eyes — ice slate, wooden splinters and frozen rivers. Through his gilded aura, there housed a rotten soul. The dozen different personas of a many faced agent crammed into a wreck of man — built up, caved in and worn down — yet alive and venomous in his own right. He learnt how to bite back, and bite back hard, and bare his teeth in tune with bad people. And he was too smart to know how to stop.

And how he did shine. Until his capacity to hate became cavernous, ravenous, like a predator laying low in the grass, one that was taught well how to wait and play the long game. How to hold his ground and see it all through to the bitter, hopeless end, where no one was waiting and no one was yearning. He had the patience but not the power; and never, never had enough of it to break free. Slow dancing with the monsters he vowed to destroy, braving the chessboard that was rigged against him in every way — pawn-turned knight, knight-turned bishop, bishop-turned rook, queen. And he was't satisfied with queen, though he'll never get further. Sat at the roundtable with the nobles, forever the mangy peasant man dirtying their halls, he held a mouthful of ashes. He was closer to the king than any of them could ever hope to achieve.

It wasn't enough.

Number zero didn't mean a thing to him.

When he came back to be at the side of the Professor, it was already too late.

* * *

The chandelier gleamed like cat's eyes, the way it did only when each individual crystal was taken apart and cleaned by hand. Stuffed arm chairs were placed exactly to the point, cushions clinically placed. Somewhere between going through mechanical motions and a relentless purge, nothing escaped scrutiny in the Noblesse's mansion. This place was immaculate.

Tesamu walked the length of the room, shaking his foot free when it caught on a few threads of the rug. He slid his fingers over the sill, tapping in a springy sequence when it yielded no dust. Both inhabitants of this place were gone.

He was already too late.

In his vision, this was where he was supposed to find the Professor again. This was where he was supposed to reach out to him first. This was where he might say to Tesamu,

 _I'm proud of you._

Cadis Etrama di Raizel had stolen his Professor Frankenstein in every way possible.

And now Frankenstein had left forever, out of his reach, to find the noble who had him enslaved.

It wasn't enough — Muzaka was a wildcard and their playing hand had failed. The Union plot he had wagered everything on didn't work. Cadis Etrama di Raizel wasn't dead and he knew it. He'd failed.

Standing in this silent house, he thought there was something dead about it. A deserted home like the one Tesamu had to flee from amidst a burning. But this was different from that, it was like a room where things once happened and now nothing did, but it was still stuck as that same place it always been. The room, this particular room, had been carefully cleaned, while their underground eden had been burned.

"And who might you be?" came a lofty voice behind him.

Tesamu whirled around, balling both hands into fists.

"It's ok, I'm not going to hurt you. I don't know who you are," he stated gingerly. He tilted his head slightly, strands of long blonde hair falling from his shoulders like spun silk. His eyes were red. He looked at him in the matter-of-fact and detached way of someone inspecting damage. "Why are you crying?"

"Shut up! Who are you?!" Tesamu gritted his teeth under his hood, swiping the back of his hand over his face.

"Funny, I was under the impression that — I asked you first!" the noble said triumphantly.

Tesamu faltered.

The noble's brows turned up, straightened, and then softened. He took a step forward and was briefly pulled back. He had gotten stuck on the stray thread of the rug. "Frankenstein is gone," the noble said, bending simply down to untangle himself. "You've just missed him."

"I've come for the Noblesse!" Tesamu said in an instant.

"No," the noble said, rising unhurriedly, and Tesamu quickly wondered how he'd misjudged the height on this man. "You've come for Frankenstein."

"This is the Noblesse's mansion."

"And Frankenstein's."

"I don't need you to tell me what I already know."

"Then what do you _need_ me to tell you?"

He was provoking him. There was no other explanation. He bent and looked away as if Tesamu was no business being a threat to him, brash like a peasant who knew no formalities. Tesamu wasn't going to strike first without knowing anything about the noble. If he could get into the Noblesse's mansion, if he could sneak up on him so easy, no matter how pathetic his aura seemed, he needed to be discrete. He needed to lure him outside of Lukedonia if this fight was going to amount to anything. But…

"How did you know?" Tesamu said, not a question but a demand.

The noble walked past Tesamu and settled himself into one of the neatly placed seats. The tips of his long hair piled in his lap, the rest of it streaming down his shoulders finely.

"Know what?"

Tesamu crushed down the urge to walk forward and close his hand around the man's neck. "You know exactly what I'm referring to."

The noble offered Tesamu the chair to his right. Tesamu glared at him. The noble retracted his hand duly. "You feel like a carbon copy of the man. Well, how he was when he first came here." The noble lifted his shoulders a bit, a minimal shrug. "He's changed."

That made Tesamu clench his fists over and over. "What do you mean, _changed?"_

"He…got happy."

"…"

"I've never felt such a soul so similar to someone such as Frankenstein until you came about. That's how I know."

Tesamu eyed the window to his left.

"Please just leave through the front door, if you need to leave. Don't break anything. And lock the door behind you." The noble's red eyes flickered up, regarding him. It made Tesamu uneasy. "You know how Frankenstein hates getting his things broken," the noble said, eyes twinkling.

"Shut. Up."

The noble did.

"I don't care what you are. I don't care who you are. You don't know him. Now, tell me," Tesamu said, stepping closer in a manner that was more cautious than it looked, "What did Cadis Etrama di Raizel do to him?"

The noble sat back in the seat, blinking once. And then more in quick succession, profusely.

"Answer the question."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Answer me."

"But I just said I—"

"Stop it!" Tesamu rocked forward, shouting at the random noble on a whim. His hood fell back.

The noble's eyes twinkled. For the moment, it was as if the noble had never entertained with the notion of dishevelment. This was despite all the conduct he'd carelessly shown Tesamu. The noble only shifted his head ever so slightly and sighed. Befuddled, and easily defeated.

"Humans can be so bizarre. What is it that you want? My answer, or my silence?"

Tesamu opened and closed his mouth. He swallowed briefly, scowling at the noble.

Then the noble smiled, the same warmth from his voice coming into this expression. "I wonder how Cadis Etrama di Raizel does it with Frankenstein sometimes. Understand him…I mean, I can get it, but I can't… _get it_."

Tesamu dialled back his emotions — nobles could feel it and hell if he was going to give this noble anything on him. He scoffed again, loud and mocking. "What I said. I asked you what the Noblesse has _done_ to him."

Tesamu's eyes narrowed, he couldn't help the anger that bubbled beneath the surface. _"Pro—_ Frankenstein. He is not some noble's common servant. He will not be soiled like that, and what is more, he would rather die than let someone soil him like that. Frankenstein does not yield to a _soul."_

Tesamu let all the disdain in the world pool in his amber stare. He pointed his gaze at the noble. The noble held his unflinching stare like it was the only polite thing to do. It angered Tesamu, but if he looked away he would be angry too. "The Noblesse has entered sleep," Tesamu said. "Why is Frankenstein still compelled by him? Why is he still under his control?"

"Oh," the noble muttered.

Tesamu sneered. "Tell me."

The noble pondered for a moment. "Nuh-uh."

That took him aback. Red glazed over Tesamu's mind and the rage leapt forth again.

"I mean," the noble quickly corrected, sweat beading on his forehead, "it's not something I can just tell you. I don't think…that could do it justice."

 _"What?"_ Tesamu managed to growl.

"Would you believe me, if I told you?" The noble wavered for a moment, on the edge of another breakthrough. He spoke wafting his hands around. "Free will is important to Frankenstein, is it not?"

Tesamu nodded, an answer like that not worth the strain on his throat.

The noble smiled again. After an uncomfortably long silence, the noble lifted his chin. It gave him an impish look. "That was my answer."

Tesamu's nails dug into his palms. "No."

"Yes."

"Frankenstein is not — he would never let that noble command him. You're telling me that Frankenstein would _willingly_ submit to someone else? That he'd willingly give his blood to a noble? Become a _lapdog?"_

"Yes."

Tesamu stood speechless.

"Well no…more like a…an extremely protective guard dog with…that's not the appropriate image, I'm gauging…" the noble trailed off at Tesamu's expression. Which was one of being blank and crushed.

The noble smiled briefly, more to himself than Tesamu. "Why else would he have stayed so long? Why else would he have bothered to show care to this house before he left? Why else would he have threatened my life on multiple accounts?" the noble said in an airy voice.

Tesamu's jaw clenched.

"You can stay here," the noble started, rising from the seat. "Wait for him. He'll come back. Eventually. You can ask him yourself."

Unwittingly, Tesamu ambled backward as the noble came forward.

Tesamu stopped. The noble stopped. And then the noble smiled, stayed where he was without moving further.

Tesamu's insides squirmed. "He's still right. After all these years. I can't trust a noble."

The lines on the nobles face creased in concern. "You're feeling confused and disappointed. But Cadis Etrama di Raizel — he and Frankenstein are bonded. Frankenstein is no longer—"

"—I've heard enough from you," Tesamu said. The corner of his lips turned upwards. He sharpened his aura into razors.

"I never want to hear another syllable from that vile mouth again," he sneered, stepping closer. "You. You sicken me, noble." Tesamu curled his head backwards, lifted an arm that began to collect in light.

It could only be described as melancholy. The noble's red eyes drooped, ageing him in ways that Tesamu could not quite put a finger on, couldn't see physically. "You sadden me," he answered.

Tesamu bought his power forward to strike him.

But footsteps rushed up from behind. It was suddenly two against one.

Tesamu froze mid-movement, spun out of the way and knocked into the desk.

"Don't forget, do not break anything on the way out."

A shadow appeared in the room and he was blind as to how many enemies he was facing. The noble had spouted nonsense to cloud his judgement. He'd fallen for the distraction. Was this an ambush? Was this premeditated? Without another thought, Tesamu escaped out the door, leaving the room behind him. When he left Lukedonia, landed back in the human world, all he could think about was the look in that noble's eyes. The things he had tried to make him believe.

Anyhow. Anyhow. So, Tesamu turned a blind eye to all his griefs — he didn't get any, if the Professor never cared for his. _Be strong,_ said his mother, looping the downfall of his Professor around his neck, _and run._ And he was so strong; he was stronger now than he had any plausible reason to be. And as long as he could run faster than the winter, that was enough for him.

He could only guess when working for the Union felt more and more like a frivolity; he didn't know when the glow had slowly disappeared from his smile, the spark in his eyes going away along with it. Tender and tired from such a petty age, his hot tears went arid dry, his warm blood went icy cold. That cynic stayed with him. There were ways of dying that didn't end in a coffin. That sunlight child, he had died a slow death.

And inside, deep down, no matter how bright his aura had gleamed — inside, he was made of that snowstorm he so wished to outrun.

* * *

Ragar swivelled around, making his appearance be seen again. He clapped a fist to his chest hard, lowered his head and dropped to the floor before the noble.

"Lord," he said exasperatedly, "Forgive me for leaving you unguarded! This was an act of treason. I will answer for my negligence as soon as I capture the intruder."

"No. It's alright."

Ragar tipped his head up, his worry growing even more apparent.

"It was a pleasant talk. Exhilarating, even. No one's insulted me that much since the peacock," the Lord said fondly. It transpired to the Lord that that was not the most comforting thing for Ragar to hear. He sighed dejectedly, motioning to him with a flippant hand. "Rise, Ragar."

Ragar got up. He eyed the door. "The Lord does not wish for me to follow him?"

"No. Let him go."

"I…" Ragar slipped a hand to his heart to salute. "I do not question your judgement. But, may I ask _why,_ Lord?"

The Lord walked over to the displaced desk, shifted it back into its exact lining with the wall. He hovered over it, fixing all the candleholders and expensive ornaments that had fallen. A closed inkwell had been cracked. He waved two fingers over it, making it uncracked. "I think he's his son."

"…Pardon?"

"Frankenstein's. What else could he be? With that aura and that attitude and that stubborn head…" the Lord mused.

Ragar blinked. Slowly, a smile twisted under that mask. "The Lord is wise."

The Lord chuckled. "Anyhow, he's Frankenstein's problem now. Once he finds Frankenstein, all should be resolved. You do not need to alert anyone of this, Ragar."

Ragar nodded and bowed reverently. "Understood, Lord."

"Now let's go. I've never liked this place. And it's even more meticulous since the peacock's gone — how could that possibly be?" the Lord mused, scratching his shoulder.

"…I cannot answer, Lord."

Ragar was no fun to talk to. Shame all the fun ones were homicidal humans.

"Never mind. Let's go to the sanctuary. I've something very important that I need to dump in there." The Lord grinned at Ragar, and Ragar shuffled uncomfortably. "It's going to be such a pleasant surprise for when Cadis Etrama di Raizel returns. I've outdone myself."

* * *

 **Notes**

 _The Previous Lord proceeds to put half of Ragnarok into Rai's shrine._

Finally this is out - now all the times I described Tesamu as being Cold™ can make some sense. I got this idea from an old teacher of mine's story about his super rich friend. His friend basically lived in two countries and would 'migrate' whenever winter was coming because they disliked winter. So for decades of their life it was basically eternal summer and good temperatures. Imagine never living out a winter, omg.

Tesamu is absolutely the guy who would do this to get away from the cold. I think there's some weird writing up there since this chapter was one of the earlier ones I wrote but I didn't have the heart to change too much of it.

i - Thank you! I'm not sure what to say...that's one of the kindest comments I've ever gotten and I'm so emotional! I often wonder how 'off' my writing is from the source material or if it's too much out of character, but then again that's what fic is for. Webcomic Franken is always in control but I wanted to see him lose his cool completely, I wanted things to be personal, and I wanted people to Cry. I used to think the plot and the time jumping was making things so convoluted, but now I'm over it and I love convolution. 'Plot' by this point pretty much means 'character' - what they're thinking, where they are and what they're going to do about their futures. I think some readers are still in shock at how Franken sees Tesamu after what he's done to him - Franken himself tried to hate Tesamu but can't bring himself to. For a logical man it's the least logical move possible, but then again Feelings aren't always logical. I think deep down Franken already knows what to do. He just needs help because it will be hard. I'm glad you think I did a good job :D This fic only exists because Noblesse had fantastic characters and very good writing for like 300 chapters! All these little reveals pieced together told an amazing story. Like, ah, nice principal is Not Nice when fighting, has never fought with full powers apparently because wow he has a seal, oh look he had a soul weapon this entire time...it's just fun. It's much harder to write from scratch than it is to draw upon existing universes and already established characters, you give me so much credit! I'm passionate about noblesse, so that's why I can write so much about it. And that's enough babbling from me~

pwmo - 'I don't even know why I said that. Axe-murderers aren't even that far off the crazy chart' was a very last minute addition, glad it hit the mark :D I ended up really liking that last chapter because it's essentially Franken feeling bad about his old adopted son, thinking it was all on him. But then he's got his new adopted son who turned out fine, who loves him, and would say all this embarrassing stuff to make him feel better. Same, I wrote Tesamu to be an indisputable villain but since I wrote him I...like my baby murderer aldkfja;dlfkj;alkdf. He's got thoughts in his head that's soo deep-set, that's become so core to who he is and what he knows that it's too hard to ever change. He doesn't want to change either - someone who thinks they're doing the best/right thing isn't going to change. (But also wtf Tesamu gtfo indeed.) Thank you soooo much

GoddamnILoveIt - :D :D

Laryna6 - 'How M-21 is like and unlike Tesamu' ! I often think about how narrowly close Franken got to killing M-21 before Rai stopped him at the beginning of the series! And then how they are now. Noblesse found family trope will take me to my grave. Thank you for commenting on 'used to be safe, no longer' thing and dark spear nightmare fuel hahaha

general zargon - M-21 and his shirts are getting suspicious since Tao and Takeo never seem to lose theirs. But then again Franken also loses his shirts too he's such a hypocrite. Thank you!


	41. Through the Looking Glass

Thank you for all the nice comments! You guys, truly, are the best.

* * *

 **Through the Looking Glass**

The sky was still dark as the fight came to an end. He stumbled to the edge of the clearing, peering beyond the trees. His arms were cradled close to him, catching blood all the way from the cliffside to the forest. He'd been doing his best to stop himself from leaving a trail. Little details like that were the most important. It wasn't something Tesamu would have known to do himself. He hadn't needed to know how to protect himself from being physically chased to the ends of the earth — he'd scratched out different rules of survival for his own kind of fight. But he'd been taught to see all those details.

Soon, the mansion he'd been expecting loomed from the mist, so large it threw the land and all the bordering woods into shadow.

"There's a mansion here?" Frankenstein said out loud. The Professor used to like talking aloud to his apprentice when they spent their days underground. It was easier to think when saying his thought process aloud. Tesamu now thought that it was a dangerous habit not to abandon.

Frankenstein was alone, still clutching at his side. His sleeves were ripped and daubed with blood.

"Just like this?" Tesamu asked.

 ** _Like this._**

Tesamu was Frankenstein, bleeding through the muck and the overgrown woods, stopping to wonder how instinct could kick in so fervently and make him run and live, despite knowing he'd come here to fight, and die for it. But Tesamu was also Dark Spear, and Dark Spear licked their teeth with the taste of noble aura still clinging to it. The taste of Kertia and Landegre, a novelty to a soul weapon that had only ever gorged on scrap mutants. It tasted lovely. Despite living through Frankenstein's motions, this was still Dark Spear's memory. The hunger overwhelmed him, threatened to scrape him empty all over again. Tesamu ignored it as best he could.

There was a man in the dark of the corridor, walking towards him. He stopped at four metres before Frankenstein and never crossed the boundary. He said nothing as Frankenstein scratched the back of his head, acting nonchalant as his amiable, artificial voice filled up the empty space.

"Hahah, I started my work here today, but I am terribly confused. Where is this, exactly?"

The man said nothing and turned to leave. Tesamu felt Dark Spear's restlessness turn within him.

There was a man whose face Tesamu had seen crease and break and smile — a passionate man, who fought with his neck bared to the blade, and loved with every fibre of his half stolen soul, and lived despite it. There was nothing in his face right now, an eon ago, that looked remotely alive.

"That shirt," the man said, deciding it was germane to talk after all. "Its mine."

Between another long corridor and a dusty, unfurnished room, the floor changed abruptly from one woollen carpet to another. Tesamu stood at the threshold. This time he was himself, looking at the memory from his own perspective.

"He'll come here?" he asked.

 ** _Yes._**

Dark Spear was right. Frankenstein happened across the bare room. Now that Frankenstein was here, Dark Spear was with him, and the blurred corners of the memory focused into view. Tesamu's eyes widened at the sight of the Noblesse. It was morning now. He was standing before the window, framed by light. Tesamu narrowed his eyes, wanting to look away, but never did. It was so bright it was hard to look at him. He felt a gush of cool wind on his face.

 _It's him,_ the Professor thought.

 _It's just his back._

He seems, Tesamu thought—

 _—lonely._

Tesamu saw his eyes for the first time. Red and calm. They were dark, unconcerned eyes. Frankenstein met his gaze back, unflinching, holding it like a man standing his ground. Tesamu felt weighed along with him.

The Noblesse turned his body halfheartedly towards him. "Those clothes…you're still wearing them."

 _"Ah,_ pardon me, I couldn't find anything else."

The Noblesse raised his arm and Tesamu flinched in his skin. He was afraid. Afraid that _this_ was the moment that he did something to him. "He's going to attack!"

 ** _Will he?_**

The Noblesse used his powers to clothe Frankenstein back into the garments he preferred.

"He's…" Tesamu faltered. "What's he doing?"

Many things happened. Dark Spear flared at the foreign power, a startling difference from how they treated the Kertia and Landegre. The Professor acted calm, but with every observation he noted and filed away for later use. Warmth. Distance. The faint sound of threading twine.

 _Garments materialising out of nothing, indiscernible power, then— a Clan Leader?_

The Professor swallowed.

 _A harmless gesture or a show of vanity?_

"I feel many emotions from the entity enveloping you," the Noblesse said, and Dark Spear reared up fondly at the words. When Tesamu looked to see the Noblesse again, he had already turned his back on him, turned to the light of the window. It was hard so look at him in the harsh light, but it was as if he, the Professor, couldn't stop looking if the ground slipped away beneath him.

"Rage, hatred, murderous intent," he said, "Why are they all against you, their master?

"Why are they so eager to swallow you up?"

Tesamu's heart was beating wildly against his chest, deeply disturbed by his words even though they weren't for him, were said a lifetime ago. It was as if this bottled up, test-tube-confined moment had caught him redhanded, watching and listening like a voyeur. The Noblesse's words put him on edge. Why indeed? Why— _why was Dark Spear showing him this?_

Footsteps burst loudly through his thoughts, jolting him out of his stupor. Frankenstein acted the same. He was cut off from any way to escape, holed up in the small space of a single room, surrounded by enemies. Tesamu felt his panic rise up his chest, even as he stood still and calm.

"He works here."

Tesamu felt as if his world was tilting on its edge. Raizel had fully abandoned the window, speaking more than ten syllables a time, all to keep Frankenstein in the mansion. Why would he help a stranger, intercept direct orders from the Lord? Did he dislike the Lord and wanted to deal with Frankenstein's trespass personally? Frankenstein had done nothing and Raizel wanted to keep him there.

The Professor stared his back. "Franken…stein."

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel."

* * *

Dark Spear rolled encouragingly, beckoning him on.

"Won't you step back for me?" Frankenstein said, his voice clear and loud.

Cadis Etrama di Raizel looked tentatively to the side, braving a look at him. Tesamu watched, his lips twisting. Raizel obliged silently.

Frankenstein took the space Raizel had surrendered quickly. His suit jacket was off and he as dressed only in a white shirt with his wet sleeves rolled up, smelling like perspiration. He began wiping down the window with long, efficient moves. "I've done the rest of the room, I can't leave this sill to be covered in filth. It's hideous, and quite frankly, unbearable to me."

Raizel looked at his feet timidly. "…Thank, thank you."

"Pardon?" Frankenstein said without turning his head. "I'm almost done, don't fret."

"Thank you," Raizel said, louder.

* * *

Tesamu lived through Frankenstein's motions again, walking down the long halls until he reached the very last room. Tesamu had been this way before — it was the room furtherest away from the Noblesse. He must have picked it thinking distance could help him stave away the noble's mind control. Frankenstein went to the drawers, picking up something that clicked. Tesamu's eyes widened as he watched Frankenstein cuff himself securely to the bedpost.

 ** _Hehehehehehe_**

The laughing followed behind him, remnants of reality within a dream.

Tesamu remembered his own room after he'd woken up from a nightmare. Dark Spear's scorch marks had snaked all across his chambers and purple shards were still embedded into the battered walls. So this was how the Professor dealt with that. Behind shut doors, Frankenstein chained himself to the bed.

* * *

"Why is he bleeding?" Tesamu asked.

 ** _Plaaaay — with the long-haired one._**

"…Ragar Kertia?"

Dark Spear snickered their affirmation. It sounded like an echo, a small stone dropped into a deep pit that hit against the walls again and again.

It reminded Tesamu that what he was looking at was the past. Nothing he would see could be changed.

It had already passed.

Before him, Raizel shifted uneasily.

Raizel opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then opened it, smiled meekly, then frowned accidentally. What did he want to say? Spit it out.

Frankenstein took a moment to look at himself, wondering what the hell the noble was staring at.

"Sorry," he said flippantly. "I'll get the blood out of the carpet." He turned to leave. "I won't come in next time I'm like this."

 _Oh._ He was worried. Tesamu closed his hands into fists, closing his anger into them as if he could trap it up into just a small point. "So what if he's such a pathetic push-over he can't even tell the Professor to stop sparring?" Tesamu spat at Dark Spear. "I don't care if he's an imbecile — why are you showing me this?!"

Dark Spear cackled, a sound filled with many different tones of many different voices.

 ** _Watch._**

In another scene, Tesamu lay at the foot of a tree as Dark Spear. Dark Spear that was flowing through Frankenstein like an ebbing storm, the worst of it over. There was a small camp with a fire lit up next to him. Tesamu had trouble breathing, his lungs wheezing, on fire. _It's fine, I'm fine. Hah,_ thought the Professor.

"Sparring gone wrong?" Tesamu said, and the moment he did, he was looking at Frankenstein back in his own perspective. "Ragar Kertia again. He should have been more careful. Being injured — it's too dangerous where he is." A wave of anger crested over him. "It was a _careless_ move."

"What's wrong?" Frankenstein asked, perturbed.

"You're back?" the noble said. He clutched at the sides of his armrest.

"Yes."

"…Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Well, why in hell would he tell the truth?!" Tesamu challenged. "Of course he'll lie! Dark Spear?"

 ** _Look at him._**

Frankenstein's features moved, trying to piece together what Raizel wanted. "Is something the matter? If you're tired, you should retire to one of your rooms. They're all clean. If you're wondering. Or, food and drink?"

Tesamu faltered. "He doesn't understand that the Noblesse was _worried sick._ Is that it?" He huffed, loud and obscene between the two reserved men. "Is that just it?" he said, and out of nowhere, a shiver ran down his back.

"I am fine, Frankenstein."

"Alright."

* * *

In the sunlit kitchen filled to the brim with food and pots and pans, Tesamu gathered close to the table as Frankenstein prompted Raizel to come closer.

"Contrary to what they've told you, I don't bite." His smirks grew less pointed, less jagged, replaced by something warm and familiar.

Frankenstein spaded out some tea leaves and smoothed them out on a scale. "There, exactly right. Then you add those to the pot and pour in the water. Like so."

Cadis Etrama di Raizel's expression looked as if Frankenstein had just done a triple backflip onto the kitchen counter backwards and blindfolded. "Just like this?"

"Just like this."

"What about the sweetness?"

"The sweet — you mean the _sugar?"_

"Sugar…" Raizel repeated.

Frankenstein's lips curled uncontrollably upwards.

"Of course. Here." He nudged the small jar of brown sugar to him. "I never seem to get it right for your tastes. Why don't you try adding it yourself?"

Raizel lingered for a long, awkward moment. The pause saw Frankenstein fly into a mental panic thinking he'd said something accidentally offensive. Then, slowly, Raizel reached for the spoon.

"Two, three," Frankenstein counted, his doubts abiding. "Four…five….six….. _Raizel-nim,_ Raizel-nim, that's a little…"

"Am I doing it wrong?"

"…No." Frankenstein undid the top button of his collar. He tried to push away his innate doctor's mind in the face of an immortal harbinger of destruction's spooning of a dangerous amount of sugar in his cup. "You have great technique," he opted to say instead.

* * *

There was a mutant holding onto his hand, breathing terribly uneven. Tesamu didn't recognise her. It was a disease so deadly not for the way in which it destroyed the body, but how it ate people away until there was nothing left but _the hunger._ A deep, gnawing chasm that took and took. Judging by the discoloured, sunken skin, she hadn't much time until she lost her mind to it. Tesamu let the motions drive him, the motions wanting for him put his forehead up to hers.

"She craves blood for God's sake!" he heard himself scream.

And something didn't feel right, this wasn't a memory, this can't have been real, Dark Spear couldn't have—

 ** _Frankenstein's._**

 _"Frankenstein's?"_ Tesamu spat. "You mean, what you stole from his head?"

 ** _It's ours—_**

 ** _Ours too._**

"No, before, those were yours. These — these aren't — _its his."_ Tesamu squeezed the mutant woman's hand. "Stop it, he's in pain," he said off-script to the woman, though he was talking not as Dark Spear or himself, and then the woman's face crumbled into nothing.

On the outside, his body was screaming a scream that wasn't his.

In the next scene, Tesamu touched his hand onto a deceased man's neck. He didn't know who this man was either. How long had this man been dead? Days, hours? It was hard to tell. He was dressed nice, nicer than the others. Someone had bothered to change and clean him before he was put to rest. Tesamu felt tears pricking in his eyes, feeling none of it. For all the things that had happened in Frankenstein's life, Tesamu must only have been a speck. "I'm sorry," he said to the man he didn't even know, "sorry."

"Back at the house, are we?" Tesamu sulked, wondering if he really wanted to have a conversation with Dark Spear. He put his hands in his pockets, ambling down a hall that he had passed many times in his head but only once in real life. "Where is he?" he asked to the walls. "Or am I him?"

But up ahead, he caught up to Frankenstein. Frankenstein was dressed in his long, white lab coat. As he passed a lit lamp, he paused, frowned, and took off his glasses to rub at them with his gloves. Tesamu smirked.

A frantic voice called up from the part of the memory that remained dark and forgotten behind him, a boy's voice. "Professor! Look! Look here! I got it — I got the equation, Professor Frankenstein!"

Tesamu's mouth dropped open.

"Lemme see."

Frankenstein bobbed down with his younger self. Tesamu, hesitating, lowered himself next to them. It was eerie, watching this from the inside, seeing how Frankenstein thought of and saw of him.

He looked, Tesamu blinked, he looked...happy.

"I remember this," Tesamu said out loud to no one — to Dark Spear. "I remember it differently," he chuckled. "I remember it as me boasting shamelessly despite getting an equation wrong, but he didn't care. He just pointed to the working and said—"

"—This is _fantastic,_ Tesamu. This is _fantabulous,_ this is _excellent,_ it's _outstanding, remarkable…"_ Frankenstein beamed at the younger Tesamu, and Tesamu let himself imagine it was for him too.

Tesamu looked around, pushed about by the large crowd of angry people. All was shouting, an entire village of people with eyes filled with hate. It was almost as if Tesamu was in a boat and the waves were crashing it all over the place, and he was too little a speck to be of consequence. He went along with the motions.

There was a boy, with curly blonde hair and still amber eyes, who walked up some creaky wooden steps to be hanged.

"What is this?" Tesamu muttered. He couldn't move, couldn't speak. _What was happening? This was wrong, he didn't remember this, this never happened, why on earth would this false memory be planted in Frankenstein's—_

Next to him, Frankenstein was paralysed too. But unlike Tesamu, Frankenstein was watching the scene unfold, the very light stolen from his eyes.

"It's a dream," Tesamu said. Finding his voice was like going back to retrace his steps. But breaking out of a trance that wasn't designed to keep him contained was easy. "I know he thought I was gone — but this isn't real!" he began to say, shaking against the bounds of Dark Spear's reconstructed world. "Dark Spear! You showed this to him?! How dare you! How goddamned _dare you!"_

Frankenstein never recognised him that night at the school, but why would he? It was too much of Tesamu to expect. _"How dare you! How—"_

 _ **Like this,**_ Dark Spear dissolved the scene deliberately this time, so Tesamu could tell where one facade ended and the next began. A fresh slate.

As the world before him changed, Tesamu felt himself calm down. He suspected it was how Dark Spear was feeling, something foreign that had seeped into him without struggle, but he was too disorientated to care.

"…We're back at the house." Tesamu found himself staring at that lithe, lonely back, bordered by dawn light. The window was closed. Criss-crossed shadows spanned its way down the room. Tesamu went up to Cadis Etrama di Raizel, examining him. His eyes were red, jewel-like. His eyes were cold — not like the lifeless shells that once asked for something as small as a cotton shirt like it was all life afforded him, but cold in a way that was shared by the hundred townspeople who circled a nonexistent boy's hanging.

He already knew something was wrong. "This isn't the real Cadis Etrama di Raizel." Tesamu leaned in impishly, huffing in his face. _"Dark Spear."_

Dark Spear turned to him with their red noble's eyes, their purple aura misting out of Raizel's mouth.

 ** _How did you tell?_**

They grinned.

Tesamu leaned on the window pane, smirking. "Where the hell is Frankenstein? If this was either his or your memory, he would be in it. Not like you can go many places without him." He kicked the wall experimentally, wondering if the images would fall apart. It didn't. "The rest are all just — images. But you — you're playing the role of the Noblesse."

Tesamu straightened himself up. "You weave real memories into the dreams. This is all one big dream," he finished. "It's just like the ones you make me."

 ** _A nightmare,_** Dark Spear said in their meshed up voice. For a while, Tesamu said nothing. The more he thought about it, the less it was a boast and the more it sounded like a confession.

"Why are you showing me this?"

Frankenstein ran into the room.

 ** _Look at him._**

Frankenstein burst into the room. His hair was messy, his clothes were tousled, and in his eyes there was a terrible look. "You're alright," Frankenstein panted.

 _ **Look at him grovel.**_

Dark Spear, the pretend Raizel, did not respond in kind.

"Sir…Sir I need to tell you something."

"Look, Sir, people are coming for me…I thought, I thought they'd taken you but I…" As Frankenstein saw Raizel, there was a terrible look of realisation. " _Guh_ …I led them here…oh my god I led them…please, you have to leave. We have to get out of here, Sir!"

Dark Spear said nothing. Tesamu couldn't stop looking. The Professor had always been proud, untouchable, infallible — he was never this weak…this _vulnerable._ He was never this vulnerable and showed it, the Professor Tesamu was taught by would rather die be like this in front of a noble — in front of someone else.

 _Let go of our soul._

"Can't you do this one thing for me? Please, we need to go — they're coming for me and I led them straight to you, don't you see? It's not _safe_ here and it won't _ever_ be again."

Frankenstein drew in a breath. "Raizel-nim, come with me."

Between the impassioned Frankenstein caught in a moment of truth, who was baring his heart on a sleeve that had been bloodied too many times, and Dark Spear who was in there — everywhere — rejoicing having him dance on their fingertips, Tesamu thought.

"…Won't you answer me properly?"

Between this made up fantasy and the very real memory of Tesamu standing before a pile of burning books, from the last time he saw the Professor as his apprentice, he couldn't help but think _this isn't how it was supposed to go this isn't fair_.

It wasn't fair.

He shouldn't expect things to be fair, either. Hadn't he been taught that? Hadn't he?

"Don't do this, not right now!" Frankenstein looked surprised at his own voice. But the moment passed, and he hardened his resolve. "HELL — listen! — Raizel-nim!" Frankenstein strode over and deftly gripped his arm. He shook him.

"Can't you at least _pretend_ to care? You need to leave here—I-I, I-"

Tesamu watched his grip on him tighten.

"—I need to protect you."

"Just go," Raizel said.

Everything was replaced by a searing, smothering kind of anger. It was totally irrational — this wasn't the real Raizel, the real Raizel would never say something like that to Frankenstein and Frankenstein shouldn't have any business believing in it — but — but didn't Tesamu believe that that was his real mother lying dead in the snow, didn't he too believe the pair of mutant's eyes sitting in Frankenstein's skull?

He hated Raizel more than ever before — he hated him, hated him. He hated that he could do this to Frankenstein, and hated that he didn't.

The room was swallowed by violence, with people clawing at the floorboards trying to get to the Professor, to tear at him, and tear at the Noblesse, tear out the lonely man's heart.

"Stop it."

 _Frankenstein, on the floor, his nails scratching against clean floorboards._

"I've seen enough. Stop it."

 ** _It's not REAL!_** Dark Spear hissed, near the end of their patience.

 _Raizel, a listless mockery of him, beaten easily while Frankenstein yelled at them to stop._

 _A dirty hand pulling Frankenstein up by the hair_ —

 _"I said stop it! Dark Spear! I said—"_ Tesamu yelled, but Dark Spear angered at the outburst, and all of a sudden Tesamu and Dark Spear had become merged again. Tesamu blinked. For a short, stark moment, it was Tesamu that loomed above, pulling Frankenstein up by the hair. _"Ah!"_ he winced, startled, afraid, letting go.

 ** _We've never forgotten,_** Dark Spear said.

Dark Spear's memories felt like being submerged in frigid water. But here the memory began to change, the thoughts and images flashed white like lightning, and there was pain pulsing through Tesamu's chest and head, followed by the smothering feeling of _fear._ It wasn't his own fear, Tesamu realised, searching frantically for the intrusion, the interference.

Something was — _had_ broken Dark Spear's trance, and had forced its way into the connection. Even though this was only a _memory_ of a dream, and one that wasn't even his, Tesamu could feel the sheer power rifting its way into this ironclad dream world, where Dark Spear was god.

This was a god brushing another god aside, while not even in their own domain, like a frivolity.

 _Like a frivolity?_ No, Tesamu thought, to Cadis Etrama di Raizel, Frankenstein was anything but.

 _Dark Spear_ — Tesamu thought, finally understanding the terror and blood pumping through his body. This was _Dark Spear's fear._ And no, they'd never forgotten it.

The act was quick and clean. Raizel simply stepped in the room from nothing, dressed in that same simple white shirt and black pants with an incredible scowl on his face. He looked more alive with his swallowed anger and pain here than Tesamu had seen him withering passively in his room, and he realised perhaps it was because he was moving forward, doing a deliberate, positive act.

And he did it for Frankenstein. Once he'd finished banishing Dark Spear away, he looked embarrassedly down at his battered image. Being on the floor in that state was not what embarrassed him — it was the fact that the false him had said and did those things to Frankenstein's face with his own.

"… _That_ is not me."

He stood there awkwardly, all the prestige of his power wiped away. It was as if he'd burst in uninvited into someone else's private conversation.

Then he said, "I will never… _never_ , turn my back on you in your time of need."

He said, "Frankenstein, I care — immensely."

And he said, "I…I've entered your mind with the authority bestowed upon me…but not your permission."

And, "I hope you can forgive me."

Tesamu knew what entering Frankenstein's mind like this would be to him; it would be as uncomely as if Raizel had just put a knife in Frankenstein's back, unprompted. He'd betrayed his trust and privacy, lurked where he ought not to. It was a confession too, one ugly and unsightly — it was Cadis Etrama di Raizel admitting that it was all a ruse — that he had the power to stomp Frankenstein anytime as he fancied, he could have slipped into his mind and rearranged it as he pleased, at no point of their little escapade had Frankenstein ever been in control.

 _He_ had all the power.

Frankenstein was at his mercy, had always been.

"Forgive him?" Tesamu spat, his chest still rising from Dark Spear's panic, "He violated him. He — _hah._ Now he knows. He knows now, he knows everything."

And Tesamu couldn't help but think Raizel had usurped Frankenstein like taking conquest, forcibly pulling something out while shoving himself in — all this because he couldn't stand having to look at some false images. Some false images Tesamu couldn't stomach either. Tesamu shook himself, wanting to stay angry, wanting to hold onto the fact that Raizel _had_ Frankenstein now.

His powers pulsed around Dark Spear's, meaning, _Frankenstein's_ mind, putting a stopper on Dark Spear's and Frankenstein's agency. If Raizel wanted to make him submit, if he wanted to end him right now, all it would take was a thought.

Raizel shuffled, looking jittery and worried.

No — there was something else, something Tesamu wasn't getting that was all around him. Tesamu looked at Frankenstein again, his face strangely impassive after all that had happened. He looked at Raizel, whose lips trembled, just a bit.

Raizel was _in_ Frankenstein's mind, having looked at his deepest, darkest thoughts. What Frankenstein had lost, what he regretted, what he wanted, what he feared, who he loved.

No.

Oh.

Why was it that the big finale was Cadis Etrama di Raizel looking soulless at the window? Why was it that Frankenstein had braved through death and decay and everything until some noble shed some nose blood? Why was it that after everything that had happened — after Tesamu himself had been declared dead, and there was nothing to mourn for, nothing at all left but the goal to get justice for the world—

Why did Dark Spear peep into Frankenstein's soul to pick out his foremost, deepest, darkest fears to play with, and see nothing but Raizel — Raizel in the window forever, Raizel wasting away refusing help, Raizel being cold and cutting — like all the people who ended up fearing him, and it was somehow always his fault.

 _He said,_ "This…um…hm…do you — wish to remember this?"

 _And he said,_ "I can make it so you can forget this all. This dream, in particular," Raizel continued, "…With your consent, I will wake you, and you won't remember."

And what he meant was: _Do not be ashamed, you are not humiliated, you are not mine to touch._

And he meant: _I do not want you to feel indebted to me, you owe me nothing._

And he meant: _If you forget this — if you forget that I saw everything, or that I saw myself in your head, it would save your pride. It would save the front you have worked so hard to build, and hide from me. I will lose all that could be possibly held against you. I do not want it._

And, Tesamu's mouth parted as he felt it, felt Dark Spear writhe back out of the Noblesse's confines, back into Frankenstein's own, as Raizel relinquished all his power over him. He was a mere drifter that Frankenstein could expel at anytime. Frankenstein had control of himself now. He could burn Raizel, and Raizel would let him.

Did Frankenstein understand what Raizel was offering him? What he was really willing to do? Of course he did. _Of course_ he knew.

"Do _you_ want me to forget this?" Frankenstein said.

Frankenstein saw Raizel, standing amid the stark white light of the window, harsh and garish to look at. And Tesamu saw the Professor, framed by fire in a bunker, never changing the decision to leave.

Raizel's mouth parted, and trembled.

"Answer me," Frankenstein demanded. "Answer me!"

"Yes."

 _He wanted him to forget he knew Frankenstein loved him in some way too, to forget that the act of him knowing would cause him pain._ Tesamu didn't know what to think anymore. He didn't even call out to Dark Spear, didn't know what to say to them. Dark Spear didn't feel the need to flaunt or laugh.

"Then I want to remember," Frankenstein said, ready to throw away invulnerability if it would let him remember.

 **"Frankenstein**

 **"Wake up."**

 ** _But not you, Tesamu._**

* * *

Notes

Thanks to Laryna6, chatting with you made me realise that I needed Tesamu to Face Reality and what better way to do that than in Dark Spear's lowkey horror reality show? It's time to admit our crimes, kids.

i - I definitely have the same feeling when reading fics - it's just so much easier to get into stories where you already care about the character. I'm glad you feel that this fic captures Noblesse and what makes it great! And you're right, I pretty much did start to write this because actual Noblesse felt like it was missing something important - why Franken and Rai are the way they are to each other. After a certain point, the story progresses but Franken and Rai's characters and relationship doesn't get explored. Which is fine as it is, but it left me wanting so so so much more. I do think my version of the characters have diverged a tad too much from canon - for one, Franken was never at his wit's end when he went to Lukedonia, he had plenty of fight in him left hahaha. But I'm ok with that, since I'm such a sucker for angsty stories I'm ok with changing it.

I was so ecstatic when you said you wanted 'Tesamu to finally grasp what this relationship really is.' I hope this chapter and the next one works for you, especially! The Lord's appearance may be confusing, and that's because it wasn't clear enough that it was happening in the past. Because the little pointer showing it was the past was established way back in chapter 3. Chapter 3 - who would remember that XD! "The chandelier gleamed like cat's eyes...but that was only half of what he wanted." This section was originally written to show that Zeroth Elder knew who Franken and Rai were, and had followed Frankenstein through the years. Aka, he was stalking him, basically. It's kind of funny too, back in chapter 3 it was supposed to be all ominous and scary - like ohhhhh who is the creepy man in Franken and Rai's house? He was menacing and mysterious. And then in the last chapter it's revealed he just loitered around for a cry, got schooled by the Lord who was still alive then, and was totally crushed that Franken had left to find Rai. Poor Tesamu, you evil petty sad man. Thank you, i.

Laryna6 - I didn't intend on focussing on Ragar's heart, but now that you said it I see it. 'The Lord's prediction being wrong because he assumes everyone has common decency.' BASICALLY. I wonder if Tesamu ever found out that was the Lord he talked to. Probably not. But I think that makes it fun, he had the leader of the nobles right there and all he tried to do was console him. Looking back, it is kind of sad knowing that soon after he puts half of Ragnorok under the house, he goes into eternal sleep. He went there knowing what he was doing, and got a little surprise finding Tesamu.

general zargon - Thank you! Technically Tesamu is Franken's adopted eldest apprentice and son who turned out to be a major problem child hahahahah. In the end, everything I've written is soap opera. I love it.

Wolf'svine - In case you read this far, thank you for the comment on chapter 8. You...were such a 'sweet summer child' in the chap 8 review, Franken does So Many Things to regret because of Intimacy Problems. But hey, it turns out ok.

Guest on chapter 21 - If you ever read this, I got so emotional that you got so emotional. "It is said Julius Caeser fought furiously as he was assassinated by those politicians. But the moment he saw Brutus, he stopped. He put his face in his hands and sunk to the floor, giving up entirely." This was exactly what I was thinking about when writing Tesamu and Franken. But, I think the only difference is that Franken doesn't give up on wanting to stay with Rai, even when he found out who had done this to him. Yes, it broke him that it's Tesamu, up until then he didn't even know he was alive - but he still fought to live. Even if it was only for Rai.

Ginzo - Thank you very much!


	42. We Curse You

Disclaimer: This has no affiliation with Noblesse.

I really regret splitting this chapter into two - even if it means it will super duper 8000+ words long. Because I wrote it in one go with chapter 41 - it's pretty much part 1 and 2 of the same chapter. May need to reread the last chapter for a refresher since it happens straight afterwards...

* * *

 **We Curse You**

"I've seen enough!"

 ** _Don't you want to see what happens after?_**

"No."

 ** _Wake up, then._**

Tesamu opened his eyes, gasping for breath he didn't need in a sweat-damp bed.

Another memory.

He lurched, getting up only to get snagged back by the clang of chains on his bed frame. Dark Spear was caged away in the memory, but Dark Spear was always with Frankenstein, so Tesamu was them and him.

Tesamu gasped. His face was cold, wet with tears. He struggled with the cuffs before rushing out of his room in a state of undress. Raizel had reassured Frankenstein but there was nothing that could help him now — his host, this noble, had seen so much of him. He'd seen things Frankenstein wasn't even sure of himself.

Frankenstein stumbled to his room, stripped to the waist.

Then Tesamu was next to him, an onlooker again.

He was confused for a moment — the room was different. It was — it looked like the room Tesamu had been in when he went there himself all those years ago. There was that carpet with the incurable loose thread Frankenstein never later replaced, there was the low mahogany table with those large stuffed chairs, the book case, the carved desk, the velvety curtains. This time, the curtains were drawn and the host, far away from his beloved window.

Raizel was sitting on one of the chairs. He wasn't looking at Frankenstein.

Frankenstein realised he was clutching the door frame and let go of it. Then he rubbed the dampness caused by his hot palms off of it and wiped his face before going in.

Raizel's eyes darted briefly to the side, letting Frankenstein, Dark Spear and Tesamu catch a glimpse of red.

They both just stood and sat there, unsure what to say.

"I had to make sure," Frankenstein muttered, his voice void of the clarity and confidence it had always come with. "That was you, wasn't it? You woke me up."

"Yes."

"You could have entered my mind any time you wanted. I chose the furtherest room from you and it did nothing."

"…"

"What is it? Don't screw with me, don't play coy, just tell me what you want to say for _once in your life!"_

"…You didn't choose the furtherest room to shield yourself from me," Raizel said, looking shyly up at Frankenstein. "You did it to save me my peace."

Tesamu scrambled to find meaning behind those words. Did he mean —

 ** _Us,_**

they snickered;

The _noise_ Tesamu made when reliving the moments in the snow. Frankenstein's commotion when he had those dreams.

Frankenstein's mouth closed and thinned into a line. After all of the careful tiptoeing around this glass figurine and engaging casual politeness, he wasn't sure where they stood now.

Raizel raised his head and met his eyes — and in that moment, Frankenstein was appalled to know that while he was living with a glass figurine, Raizel had been walking upon eggshells this entire time. To him, Frankenstein was the one made of glass, not the other way around.

"May I ask you a question?" Raizel asked.

Frankenstein hesitated. "Please."

"Are you afraid of me?"

Tesamu felt like his chest would collapse into itself, and that Dark Spear would crumble inside it.

Frankenstein studied those words carefully. But the pause went on too long and Raizel sighed his want for an answer away.

"It's alright," he said gently, and he had remotely no right to sound so vulnerable with the behemoth power he had and the prestige his title hailed him, none at all. "It is fine. It is as it always is."

He looked up again, smiling just slightly. Then he turned his head to the closed window, staring at nothing. "They are afraid of me, too. I am powerful, and I cannot help but see and feel what they see and feel, if they are too close. That's why I stay here," he said. "Because I am the…"

He trailed off.

 _Noblesse,_ Tesamu finished for him.

Frankenstein shrugged it off. He met Raizel's gaze head on and held it, watching his features twist and change. "You know what I hold," Frankenstein cocked his head briefly, sending a purple spark up his neck.

"You can imagine what my people think of me for having it. For _using_ them the way I do. They don't just fear me," Frankenstein said, cracking a small smile himself, but with none of the malice it was usually laced with. "They hate me."

"They are wrong to," Raizel said.

Frankenstein huffed. "How could you be so sure, good sir?"

Raizel's eyes glowed with that red. "It is my duty. To know."

"Is it?"

There was a tone of surprise in Frankenstein, though it wasn't genuine. But this was not Frankenstein mocking — Tesamu knew how that sounded like, and this wasn't it. Tesamu stepped in as close as he could, wedged between them.

Frankenstein moved to sit opposite to Raizel. There was a slight change in his face, a crease here and there and a confused mouth opening. It was as if he'd only realised he was half-dressed until this moment.

Raizel lifted a hand. Power swirled around it. But he suddenly quashed it down, leaving a powerless hand hanging in the air between them.

Was he too worried about using his powers on Frankenstein now? It was the first piece of power he'd shown him when they met, Tesamu thought. Raizel had thought nothing of it then, because it was harmless to the both of them. Now that he'd shown Frankenstein the depths of his abilities and control, he hesitated.

Frankenstein studied Raizel. He nodded assuringly. Raizel materialised a shirt for him.

"You're right," Frankenstein started, swallowing something that was stopping him back, "I do fear it. You have more power than I reasonably care to chart. I know it bleeds from you and keeps the nobles back. The Clan Leaders have a better chance shielding themselves from you but the normal population can't."

Raizel nodded, an admission.

"I fear mind control because I am not a fool," Frankenstein said, as if Raizel didn't know all the terrible things he was frightened of in an alphabetised list, "But I'm not afraid of you."

Something in Raizel's eyes changed. It was slight, as subtle as a moonrise, but certainly there.

"Likewise, you've never been afraid of me and it's a good change of pace," Frankenstein added, fiddling with a sleeve before crossing his arms defensively.

Another pause. Tesamu was engrossed in this moment, not even thinking about what Dark Spear was doing. He forgot there must be a purpose to force him to see these things.

"You came here to die." Raizel's brows creased. He looked like he was in pain. "You came here to prove your point, that humans are not weak, and then die," he said.

Frankenstein's throat trembled and Tesamu felt the nausea threatening to overcome himself.

"Why?" Raizel asked, a curious lilt in his voice that did not fit his face. "Why would someone like you think like that?"

Frankenstein answered. _"Rage, hatred, murderous intent,"_ he said, "that's what you said was hanging over my head. Dark Spear, my soul weapon, will consume me eventually."

Raizel's eyes widened fractionally, and Frankenstein added, "And that is my due. But — why shan't I make myself useful beforehand?" he said, instead of saying he was at the end of his rope after having lost everything, the stripped down version him that honestly thought it was the best course of action, having nowhere left to hide. The Union was insidious, and they'd done it in the end. They'd drove him over the edge, where there was no going back, and he jumped down himself.

But now he was here. At the same time, Frankenstein did not know that he would never come back from this. Not really. But Tesamu did know, and he had to watch it play out standing right next to the man that had somehow earned himself the Professor's very life, who had given it willingly.

Tesamu cringed, looking down at his feet.

All of the scenes piled up, the small quips and quirks he noticed stirring in his mind. He remembered to hate Cadis Etrama di Raizel, but it was as if he needed to find something he'd lost in order to hold onto that hate. It used to be easy for him. It used to consume him, something that he'd learned to let it drive him. It was his purpose.

Instead, he felt something else there, uncoiling alive next to Dark Spear in the dark, empty space, something terrible and barbed. Tesamu curled his hands into fists. There was an irrational anger coming over him. He didn't even know what he was angry at more: Dark Spear for showing this useless display as if he had any want at all to get into _their_ demented minds, or Cadis Etrama di Raizel, knowing exactly what an utter disgrace he was to the face of the earth just by existing, by doing nothing, by being like this and then flaunting three wings over a lake, crying blood for revenge.

"Don't think me ungrateful. I understand you've given me asylum. And I will repay you by acting as your butler," Frankenstein quickly diverted. It looked as if he'd made the mental connection that this was still a noble, and he was still a liability in the state he was in. He would never have done this in his right mind. Never.

The walls came back up and Frankenstein shifted away. "And I have other business here. You needn't _know."_

Raizel nodded. He smiled, but then the smile withered. Was it back to the status quo? Was the damage mitigated? It seemed so. Frankenstein tried to make it seem so, and so Raizel did as well.

Raizel gestured to the door. "You should sleep. You are tired."

After a short pause, Frankenstein asked, "Don't you ever need to rest?"

"…I do. But not now."

"I can make you tea."

"I must decline."

"Do you require me to open the curtains?"

"No, I decline."

"Then I'm going."

Frankenstein crossed the room to leave.

"Good night, Frankenstein."

"Good night, Sir Raizel."

It was so slight that Frankenstein didn't see it in the dark room. But Dark Spear, who lusted for the smell of it, caught it, so — so did Tesamu. Blood, in the corner of Raizel's mouth.

 ** _You can_**

 _"He's bleeding."_

 ** _Wake up now, Tesamu._**

"What the fuck is wrong with him."

 ** _Get up._**

* * *

"Do you think you magically showing me the past is going to beam revelations into my mind?"

Tesamu sat up in the KSA medical bay, checking the messages An Sangeen and Na Yonsu had left him. There wasn't much more a healing chamber could do for him now — the damage to him was done and no amount of medicine was about to fix it completely. All he could do was wait for his aura to come back to him after he'd exhausted himself regenerating.

 ** _Untampered,_** Dark Spear said. ** _The same._**

"I know it's untampered." Tesamu sat himself back on the bed. "There's no point unless you're showing me your real memories. But you're deluded," he gritted the end of the sentence through his teeth. "I already know this. You're showing me things I already know."

Dark Spear fell back into laughter.

 ** _You know?!_** they chittered, and the world went dark.

Tesamu opened his eyes in the black space, facing something darker than that as hands and tendrils merged, looming over him.

 ** _What do you know?_**

"The night I went to Cadis Etrama di Raizel," Tesamu said, stepping forward, stepping unconcerned into the coils of their tendrils as they began to loop around his limbs, "After I met the Professor at the school, I went to see the Noblesse for myself. It was reconnaissance."

 ** _Call it what you want!_**

"Fine! I went out of my way to see what kind of a man the _famed_ Noblesse was. I betrayed the First Elder and everything I've built for the Union, just so I could see for myself," Tesamu stated loudly, his voice ringing in the emptiness. "He hated the way I talked about the Professor. He couldn't stand how I called him 'spoiled goods.'"

Tesamu let himself seep into Dark Spear's embrace. But as soon as a hand, cold and hard, trapped in rigour mortis, cupped his cheek, he turned starkly away.

"I know he cares about Frankenstein. It's not news to me. Why would that change anything — that he cares?"

Dark Spear cooed. It was a babyish, mocking sound.

"I cared, and look where that got him?!" Tesamu raised his voice, not caring about how thick the walls were or how good the security was outside his body in the real world, not caring about the fact that he was in hiding, "If I died in the snow — if you never came into existence — if Cadis Etrama di Raizel rotted in his fucking mansion like a fucking coward — then _none_ of this would have happened — and none of us would have stripped him down until he had nothing left!"

A small fist wrapped its way into his hair, pulling him suddenly backwards. Tesamu spun around, batting the hand away. It was only after he looked at it that he noticed it was a child's hand.

Tesamu breathed out, furious. "He'd have eradicated the nobles and taken back humanity. He wouldn't have wasted his life doing jack-all looking after a traitorous kid, and then playing house with the noblesse. If we weren't all so selfish, none of _this,"_ Tesamu huffed, gesturing to the blank space, "None of this would needed to have happened!"

 ** _Who's fault do you think it is?_** Dark Spear said. **_Who's fault do you think it is?!_**

Wind and pressure whipped past Tesamu, the tendrils ripping from his skin and retracting into a ball. For a moment, there was nothing but stillness. But then Dark Spear coiled and coiled and squirmed, like black tar sloshing and collapsing back within itself, until the tangled mass pushed itself into a human form. And upon that form of four limbs and one head and just a single set of eyes, Dark Spear morphed themselves into the image of Tesamu.

In Tesamu's own image, Dark Spear ambled forward, lopsided, **_"If I died in the snow — if you never came into existence — if Cadis Etrama di Raizel rotted in his ffucking mansion like a fffucking coward — then none of this would have happened!"_**

They screamed.

 ** _"If I died in the snow,"_** Dark Spear slurred, trying to pretend to be Tesamu, but unable to keep the facade, ** _"Then we would never have been made, Frankenstein would never have found Cadiss Etraama di Raizell— you did this, You Did This! YOU did this!"_**

And then, chilling Tesamu to the bone, catching him totally off guard despite the fact that he'd braced to be devoured in a moment of impulse and blasé disregard for finishing his purpose, Dark Spear crumpled. Sobs erupted from all around him, a sound so broken and terrible it made Tesamu want to bang on nonexistent doors, run and get out of this empty space.

In Tesamu's marionette-like body, bent into the shape of a human, Dark Spear could cry again.

Tesamu walked up to Dark Spear, looking down at them. "You love Frankenstein," he said.

And they died for it, were still dying for it, over and over again.

Somewhere along the way, Tesamu had stopped seeing Dark Spear an 'it' but a 'they,' had realised that they were a person.

This was where Frankenstein had got it so wrong. He, too, saw them as a one sentience merged of many, a new being borne out of a mass. But unlike Tesamu, Frankenstein thought them victims who were unwilling and cursed to this existence and couldn't help themselves by wanting more to join them. They wanted him, wanted only him, and were ready to burn the world and salt the ashes to get to him, even if there were only bones left. It was a selfish, grasping kind of love that made the emptiness in them emptier, that had changed Dark Spear from an unthinking hedonist to a being possessed with the want for it.

Possessed with the want for Frankenstein, in any and every way they could have him.

Dark Spear wailed in a mix of Tesamu's voice and many others. It was a deep, disjointed thing that Tesamu felt in his blood. The sound wasn't coming from the man dressed up as Tesamu on the ground holding his head, even as he opened his mouth in sync with the screeches, but all around the dark space.

Tesamu looked down on them. "How does he live with you. You're cruel, and you're jealous, and petty — and you know exactly what you're doing — you're not a _stupid poor miserable experiment gone wrong_ — you're a parasite. You've been feasting on Frankenstein because you're nothing but bitter, and selfish!"

Dark Spear hurt Frankenstein and he let him. When he ran away with the whispers to Lukedonia, Dark Spear never had the same hold on him again. After he met Cadis Etrama di Raizel.

 ** _You did this,_** they muttered. The Dark Spear-Tesamu looked up, and they had two eyes, four, five, six, a dozen, dozens more, filling up his face until the human form broke away.

 ** _You — promised us Cadis Etrama di Raizel,_** they babbled, ** _you promised us his death, our victory ourvengeance ourlove._**

 ** _You lied — We curse you! Curse youcurseyou — you lured us,_** they mewled, **_away from Frankenn…steinn_**

"I didn't mean to."

Dark Spear rushed forward, rushing past Tesamu like a flood, submerging him until it was taut and hard to breathe. Tesamu stood his ground.

"You'll know if I was lying. I do want to kill Cadis Etrama di Raizel, and you were an asset I could use. I weighed the risk and took it anyway."

 ** _Curse you!_**

Cold hands ran up his back again, hands searching in his hair and on his neck, grabbing at him. Though Tesamu knew fighting it would be useless, he didn't dare let them have the satisfaction of winning. He wouldn't break.

"I thought I'd take his penance as my own by taking you. You get what you want, I get what I'd have deserved, he can be free. But now I take it back — you don't deserve anything and I certainly don't have to lay down and let you have at me." Tesamu shook his head wildly, grinning.

 ** _We Curse You Curseyoucurseyoucuurse you_**

"It's time to gloat, Dark Spear," Tesamu said, rabid, "You left him because you could never have him — and you'll never have him because he's never wanted you in the first place — you're a mistake, and you're unfixable."

Dark Spear began to screech again. The hands turned into claws, ripping into Tesamu where he stood. The pain of being in the empty headspace alone with Dark Spear got worse, turning into something almost tangible. Outside, his body began to bruise. Tesamu yelled. He heard his yell echo close to him, and he wondered when the walls of the empty space had closed in so suddenly. Tesamu closed his eyes and huffed.

"It doesn't matter," Tesamu lifted his head, and in his best, sober voice, said, "We can spend eternity together, you and I, and you can show me all the things you'll never have, and I can laugh in your face with it."

 ** _Tesssssaaaaaamu_**

"Hahah," Tesmau started, brokenly. "Hahahaha — _hahahahahahahahah!"_

 ** _Tessaamu!_** Dark Spear screeched, **_Why don't you look more, then, look, look look at them_**

 ** _Look at them — more and more and more—_**

"—Wait."

Their right eye was bleeding, blood as red as his hair dripping down his face like tears. "It's yours, isn't it?" the noble said.

Tesamu shifted to look at what he was showing him. It was a necklace. The noble dangled it on the tip of the soul weapon.

It was his.

"Why do you have that?!" he heard Dark Spear and Frankenstein and himself sneer. _"Urokai!"_

Urokai's lips widened into a leaden, knife-like smile. "I really don't understand why this is bothering you so much." He cocked his head without moving his eyes. "You can have it, if you want it."

The necklace was tossed away like trash.

Frankenstein lost himself and attacked.

 _"What do you see when you stand there everyday?"_

Frankenstein was standing in the Noblesse's place, his eyes plastered out that godforsaken window, waiting for something that would never come back to him, not in this land, not in this age.

"Then I'll keep laughing!" Tesamu yelled, "You like that, don't you? You love laughing!"

 _"I'll find him. I'll find him._

 _"I'll find you."_

Thin and hungry, he leaned on crumbling rock and shared food with a young companion.

In a near empty tavern, he picked up broken glass, not yet enough alcohol in his system for his liking.

In an angry little village, he saved a friend by putting himself on purple fire.

With his fingers intwined and his head bowed once more, he plead under the tall arches that prayers sound overhead, "I want to hear your voice again…I'm so afraid that I'll—that I'll just forget, one day. The sound of your voice."

And Tesamu remembered this moment when he, angry and hateful and so self righteous about it, put out a candle, but not the parts where he picked out flowers for Raizel and gave him tulips, or when he went to the floor to apologise to Raizel for breaking the seal that undoubtedly hurt him.

 ** _We Curse you._**

The thoughts and feelings moved too fast, barely leaving time for Tesamu to process them. Everything was out of order, everything was rushing by, out of a grasp he never had.

Lost in black flames and a mass of grappling hands — it wasn't anger that had pulled him down to these depths — it wasn't anger but grief, the grief of seeing that necklace, knowing he'd lost his apprentice — before Raizel reached out into those depths and pulled him back.

He was sweating in his suit and bow, loathe to looking an inch less than immaculate in front of someone else, asking, on the verge of pleading Muzaka to help when he couldn't lift Raizel's spirits.

In the mansion, he opened and closed all the hundred and five rooms only to discover he was the so-called prisoner, that he wasn't really one at all.

Surrounded by calculating Clan Leaders, he engaged in verbal combat to defend the master of the house like his own pride couldn't take it.

In a bustling market place, he led him carefully from stall to stall, waiting patiently for choices made in a lot of time.

On the whaler's ship, waves rocking the boat all over the place, he smelt camomile. On the gilded ball room floor, he tipped his wine onto the ground.

Before the graves, he savoured the feeling of an anchoring hand on his shoulder, shielding him, supporting him.

Stuck in that daymare looping around and around, he took fourteen steps in those last three minutes, blinked six times, made eye contact with Raizel's gaze once with his reflection, and it was all he had to hold onto.

Out in an open field, in the middle of another kind of crowd, he shouted, "Let me! Let me," **_Let you?_** "Let me do this for you!"

 _'He'_ was Frankenstein, but in this stolen perspective he was also Dark Spear, and so he was also Tesamu.

 _"Master,"_ he said, but he could only think, _"Professor."_

 _"Please," he said, and Tesamu could only think, "Wait."_

 _"Raizel-nim._

 _"Noblesse,_

 _"My Lord,_

 _"Master."_

And Raizel said, _"Stand down,_ Frankenstein," and gently removed his hand.

And he said, "You may have anything you want. Simply _staying by my side_ is too small a request. Anything you desire — if it's within my power, it is yours."

And he said, "The tea is not yet sweet enough, Frankenstein."

And, "Your soul is like this flower. It's beautiful."

And, "I will wait for you. I will wait for you however long you wish to stay here."

"If it be a memory, let it be a happy one."

"Frankenstein, are you alright?"

"I heard glass shattering."

And, and, and.

* * *

Notes.

Lots of notes, I must talk.

Contrary to what I thought I'd be writing, this fic seems to be summed up by: Q) Who loves Franken the most?

a) Franken's sweet-tooth godlike executioner master

b) Franken's self-righteous adopted terrorist son

c) Franken's manmade parasitic ghost weapon

Vote now.

(Seriously though, the two things I always try to avoid in general is romance and love triangles. And now this. Though Tesamu is completely platonic lol, turns out I just wrote myself the hugest, weirdest love triangle.)

Laryna6 - The thing that got me in your last review was 'Unlike Franken, there is no one to save Tesamu from his nightmares.' And you're right. Tesamu is completely alone. No Union, no subordinates, no disposable weapons. (He's so lucky Sangeen and Yonsu found him though. So, so lucky.)

General zargon - thank you! Sorry about the slow updates, I can't seem to find the right inspiration. But I will finish this fic if it kills me.

i - You said, "You managed to give out the meaning and depth of their relationship with the scenes you chose. It was a bit confusing at first, but everything was made clear as I read." Honestly, this is how we got this far in the story. I had some idea of what the fic was going to be about - mostly drama and angst dealing with Franken's feelings of abandonment etc - but originally, this was not going to be a romance. I did not plan for Rai and Franken to have fallen in love way before the story started, and then slowly come to be able to admit to themselves that they do. I wrote all these scenes showing that Franken and Rai would do practically anything for each other, that they were only themselves when they were in one another's company, and the only thing that mattered personally to them was being together - it got to the point where they couldn't possibly be read as anything else but lovers. It's like the 'death of the author' happened, but it happened as I was in the middle of writing it! It went in the direction that Franken and Rai wanted to go in, but I'm glad it did.

Six Worlds Down was a really experimental fic for me and I had fun writing it. I had no idea that I would use pretty much the same idea in this fic too. But this disconnected dream style has a lot more weight in this one, I think!

Link - WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE AN ACCOUNT? You wrote so many nice reviews and all I could do was scream from behind a wall because I couldn't message you right away. It's really too bad all Clerval got in this fic was Death as well - I will try to put something in the side stories for him. For the original book, everyone jumps to correct and say "Frankenstein" Is the "Monster." Now we merge it! It is both! We know that when Franken is completely consumed by Dark Spear, he isn't thinking - just reacting, just moving. We know that because consumed-Franken attacked Raizel when he didn't want to and felt guilty about it when he woke up. When people let one thing take them over, it's like they're a mindless, rampaging monster. Thanks for commenting on mood and characterisation as well! It is stupid but I, for one, laughed for five mins when first coming across the Telemarketers joke in Noblesse. Thank you so much for going through the chapters and leaving such nice reviews. Thank you!

ococo - It's alluded to that Tesamu knew he would be used to take down Frankenstein, somehow, when he gave over the necklace to the Union. Tesamu knew Franken thought he was dead :( I have a pretty biased love-hate relationship with Tesamu haha, and I'm glad you have such strong feelings about him!

Lord of the Gauntlets - I've given you my thoughts already but thank you again for your nice review! Franken and Rai do need a talk, don't they? I honestly think, with everything he's done, Tesamu doesn't even deserve to talk it out with Franken lmao. But I'm sure they still will because Franken still loves him.

Guest - You reviewed in Spanish and I googled translated it and thank you! There will definitely be more images of people getting consumed by Dark Spear in the near future.


	43. What's in a Name?

Disclaimer: This has no affiliation with Noblesse. Thanks to _qdeanna_ for helping polish this up!

* * *

Once in a sun drenched room, misted in a thousand droplets of vermillion, like tears, Frankenstein said for the first time, _"Master."_

* * *

 **What's in a Name?**

Frankenstein stretched and yawned. He should still be feeling stiff and sore in some places. Even though he made a good recovery from the last fight, the enhanced healing process could be straining on muscles. But no, he felt surprisingly fine and well-rested. There was sunlight on his face, pleasant and warm. He seemed to be sitting on a park bench of sorts, green grass beneath his feet. Some wind blew his hair into his face and he moved to throw it over his shoulder.

Oh, this was a dream. A good one, too.

Frankenstein smiled. He crossed his legs together and slumped back, getting some sun on his neck too. Sounds of faraway laughter reached him — the sound of children. Opening his eyes to confirm it, Frankenstein made out the shape of the Seoul National Museum. Oh, he remembered now. He'd been here before, on a school trip. As Principal, Frankenstein didn't usually go on educational trips with his students, the most he did was some organisational phone calls.

But Frankenstein did clear his schedule once for this. Frankenstein shifted his head. To his right, Raizel shared the park bench with him. Raizel regarded him with a soft look, never wavering.

"I hope I am not intruding."

Frankenstein huffed outwardly, leaned forward, and grinned. "I assure you, you are not." Frankenstein leaned back into his seat, but this time he stopped slumping and sat up straight. "I want you to be here."

Raizel smiled. "So I am here."

They sat together quietly, admiring the view. The Museum was grand and still new-looking, and overlooked a stretch of water with a small, ornate pagoda. The group of children on snack break, who had clearly finished their snack break, were romping around the front courtyard of the Museum, causing a ruckus. Frankenstein caught a glance of someone with red hair, and wondered if Shinwoo of all people had appeared in his dream.

"It's one of my happy memories." The Raizel beside him glanced up, watching the peaceful scene in the distance fondly. "The bus that was employed to deliver us here took a stop on request, and my friends were able to buy nice things from the 'Seven Hundred and Eleven.'"

"Ah," Frankenstein said, wondering what kind of outlier bus driver Raizel had landed on a school trip. He nodded agreeably.

"Shinwoo and Yuna taught me how to eat _'bubblegum.'_ And Ikhan and Suyi warned me egregiously to _'spit it out.'_ Humans are so innovative. There is a candy that you can chew, but must not swallow. It tastes sweet, but is not edible. Is that not strange, Frankenstein?"

Frankenstein's eyes shifted as soon as he heard that statement. Despite Raizel having to do something so inelegant for the sake of eating bubblegum, it sounded as though it was a good experience in his eyes.

"Did you enjoy it?"

Raizel nodded, a touch of colour appearing on his cheeks.

"Very much."

Breaking into a smile, Frankenstein exhaled happily. It took so little to please Raizel, truly. All he wanted to do was please him. It was what he'd built this school for, what he'd built this new life of his for. A fresh, good start for Raizel.

"After lunch," Raizel said, drawing his attention back with magnetic force, "you came to find my group. We walked together along the water for a while and then sat down on this _'park bench.'"_

Frankenstein's mouth parted thoughtfully as his brows went up. "Oh…yes, I remember." He frowned briefly, wondering why he hadn't realised it. Slow. He really needed to get his bearings faster in a dream, now that he was…alone.

"…It was a little, selfish request of mine."

He also needed to learn how to hold his tongue in a dream, for he must have said something wrong. Raizel looked visibly startled. Frowning, Raizel leaned in, closer than was safe with him dressed in white uniform and Frankenstein being clad in black. A student and his principal. Raizel leaned in.

"It's a happy memory because you were here with me."

He said it both so softly and vehemently that Frankenstein had trouble parsing it. Was there some underlying meaning he was supposed to understand? He blinked, letting it go silent as he searched for what it was. Then Raizel looked at him. Raizel looked at him like he only had this chance to burn Frankenstein into his memory. As if after this moment, he could never see Frankenstein again.

It made Frankenstein's chest hurt a little.

"You make me happy, Frankenstein." Raizel's brows fell, and creased, making lines appear on his face that looked like he would either laugh or cry. Frankenstein couldn't tell.

A startled sound stuttered out of Frankenstein's mouth. He looked away — he had to look away. Those red eyes were so honest, so open, it made him feel too much all at once.

"I've given you so much pain…" he muttered, more to himself than the Raizel on the bench. "You deserved better. You deserve…"

Raizel shook his head. "There is nothing _'better'_ than being with you."

Frankenstein huffed loudly. It wasn't the truth, but Frankenstein would not argue with him.

Raizel waited for him to compose himself. "Call for me, Frankenstein."

Frankenstein turned to him hurriedly. Was…was that an order? Did he have to answer to dream-orders? Of course he did. But even like this, he couldn't quite bring himself to say—

"Mas…" Frankenstein closed his eyes. He closed his eyes hard, wincing inwardly as if being physically hurt. _"…Do I have the right to call you that, Sir?"_

Raizel sighed quietly. His lips turned up slightly in the corners, though Frankenstein could see it was strained. "You understand that this is a dream, Frankenstein."

Frankenstein nodded.

"I am the true Cadis Etrama di Raizel."

Frankenstein had suspected it. He'd suspected it, but didn't want to confirm it. If he did, he might be too afraid to do or say what he wanted. What a stupid thing to think about. This was Raizel, his soul awake in the coffin even if his body wasn't.

"How can you be here, if we are no longer bonded?" Frankenstein asked him.

"Frankenstein, we are under the same roof. The distance between us is so little. And I," he said, "I _know_ you."

"Ah."

This was agonising. Frankenstein should have a mouth full of words, full of things that he wanted Raizel to know — about that night at the school, about the room beneath the house, about the Kraveis', the lab, Tesamu, and the lakeside — but as Frankenstein gazed at Raizel, and Raizel held it like it was nothing but infinitely precious, those kinds of things just melted away.

Frankenstein shuffled, uneasy.

"Since this is a dream, and there would be no consequence if we are seen," Frankenstein started, "Could you…humour a request of mine, Sir?"

Raizel nodded solemnly. He would do anything, anything at all for Frankenstein. Sometimes, Frankenstein hated this.

"Could you put your hand on my shoulder? Like you always do, to calm me," Frankenstein said, voluminously, fervently, so _shamelessly_ yearning for it. "I'm quite fond of it."

Raizel got up. Frankenstein's heart plummeted. It didn't matter, if his— if the Sir did not want to, then he by all means should not do it. But Raizel got up, walked behind the park bench, and placed both his hands on either side of Frankenstein's shoulders. It was a small gesture, not something that Frankenstein should feel so much for, yet he savoured it like a starved man.

He lingered there, stock straight. "Thank you, Sir."

Behind him, Raizel squeezed affectionately. He spoke, his voice laced with sadness. "Why do you hesitate, Frankenstein?"

"I…" Frankenstein broke off. He already knew what Raizel was referring to. Some part of him even went so far as to wish Raizel would say nothing. Maybe then, everything could stay the same. Or, at least, Frankenstein could pretend it was for but a moment longer.

Frankenstein's eyes were plastered straight ahead, looking on at the large, modern building structures that suddenly vanished like smoke into open air, and the distant white noise of children going silent like lines being abruptly cut, and the mirror-like lake quickly disappearing into empty, empty space. A space something or someone used to occupy, left deserted.

Faced away from Raizel, Frankenstein did not smile.

"I am _not_ your bonded."

"Frankenstein," Raizel started. "Did you consent for our contract to be broken?"

Frankenstein did not answer.

Raizel kept his hands on Frankenstein's shoulders, like the physical act of it was anchoring him from sinking and disappearing as well. "Did I?"

"No, Sir Raizel. _"_

Raizel removed his hands. Walking back in front of Frankenstein, he regarded him. "Then I believe the contract still exists between us."

Frankenstein shook his head many times, "You of all people should know it was broken." It was broken, torn, stolen away from them in an act of barbaric carelessness, the crowing jewel of his old apprentice's research. No true contract had ever been forcefully broken before. All that learning, all that time holed away in the Union, just for this.

Raizel looked at him sternly and shook his head, slow and steady. "You are alive. I am alive. We are here, together," he said, more sure than ever, every bit the divine being the nobles praised, the old age humans worshipped. "Our contract was your word, and mine. And it lives on between us."

Frankenstein clutched the bottom of the benches, his entire body starting to quiver from trying to keep calm and appropriate when he could hardly keep it together.

"You…" he said, fearful, "You will still have me?"

Surprised by the words, but not put off, Raizel's brow furrowed seriously. "I want nothing more, Frankenstein."

Frankenstein's heart could had stopped. He cried out, unable to hold in his desperate breath, _"—Master!"_

He rocked forward, covered his face with his hands, so ecstatic it made his insides pulse and hurt.

"Master, Master," Frankenstein repeated over and over again, every part of him confirming and celebrating it, his very soul singing it.

As he leaned over in his lap, stricken by Raizel's words, Frankenstein felt warm hands touch his own. Slowly, gently, Raizel peeled Frankenstein's hands off his face. Frankenstein was seated on the bench while Raizel stood before him. _"…Master…"_ Frankenstein continued, looking up at him, "My Lord. My Liege. My Sire, My Commander, my…" Frankenstein trailed off as he watched Raizel bend to meet his eyes.

The empty feeling that followed hurt. It was as if his soul had already left his body, trying to reach out, trying to grab hold of what was once always open to him, wanting to fall into a familiar embrace. He had reacted but there was nothing there, just a vast, endless sea between them. Raizel was here, but Frankenstein wanted more, wanted him to be even closer, as close as possible.

"Frankenstein," Raizel reassured, his voice soft. "Don't you have something else to say to me?"

Frankenstein said nothing.

"Tell me what needs to be said. Tell me what you want, Frankenstein."

Frankenstein's lips trembled. "I want to remake our bond."

Raizel's lips parted, his eyes narrowing with joy. "I will wake you, now. Then we can."

Frankenstein nodded, watching Raizel rise.

"I do have something to tell you," Frankenstein said, "I need you to hear me, Master."

Raizel smiled. "I will."

"I…" Frankenstein hesitated. "Not here, Master. I must tell you face to face. I must tell you the truth."

Raizel breathed in deeply, and nodded his answer. Then he straightened up fully, his eyes beginning to glow with powerful aura. **"Wake up, Frankenstein."**

* * *

Frankenstein gasped awake and bolted upright. For a few moments, he just sat there, his chest heaving. He knew what he had to do, knew what he had to do would change everything, knew that Raizel was awake and real and only metres away from him. Frankenstein closed his eyes, swallowed back hard, squeezed his covers. Then his body just moved, getting up, forcing a wave of aura down his body causing a neat, black suit to materialise.

He marched down the corridor while tying his bow, taking notice of the open doors of empty rooms. The household already knew and were probably there. Frankenstein was proven right when he heard chatter in the living room ahead, and he—

"—What about bibimbap?"

A pause.

"We can't eat ramyeon for every meal, Raizel-nim. You can eat other things that aren't ramyeon. Not everything needs ramyeon. Ramyeon isn't a breakfast food. Besides. You've had enough, we had it everyday in the mansion with you."

"…Then I will oblige," came a deep, soft-spoken voice, "with your expertise."

Frankenstein stopped, midstep. The _realness_ of everything drove into him, as sharp as a chill. All of a sudden he was so profoundly aware that, not only had he been caught totally off guard by Raizel's awakening, he had not been at his side when it happened. He wasn't prepared for this. How could he ever be? _The last time Raizel had walked back into his life, he had the gall not to realise who exactly was in front of him until he lifted his head. Disgraceful._

Frankenstein took a breath and swallowed down his anxieties. He began frantically touching his hair, pressing down flyaway strands only to reach his bow and discover the heinously asymmetrical loops. Frankenstein gasped sharply again and began retying the bow.

"You didn't miss much. Regis's Grandpa came by. You should probably text him, let him know you're up. Oh, we got a new door. It's like the old one, but…different."

"Don't worry! We'll teach you how to open it — it's even easier than the last, just need your fingerprint. Newest tech, and all."

"What he means to say is that you no longer need to memorise a passcode to enter, Raizel-nim. You need only a fingerprint, of which you have on your person at all times."

"…No! It's got nothing to do with cutting your finger! It's not a blood sample! What the hell, Raizel."

Frankenstein was still retying his bow for the third time. It still wasn't right, it still — he restarted again. What was he doing? All he had to do was tell the truth. All he had to do was step out. He would step out and Raizel would be there, all he had to do was —

As Frankenstein approached, the first thing he could see was Tao sprawled all over the coffee table next to Takeo and M-21.

"Plus, it would be good if you could act sick. We've been telling Shinwoo and Yuna and them that you've been sick. It's not that hard. Just cough a little— _"_

Takeo rose from the table spastically, his mouth dropping open. "Frankenstein."

Everyone turned to look.

It felt so long ago when Frankenstein had once left this house every day for work and come home to nobody, to a series of walls, to a silent, empty house. Frankenstein, living as he always did, one man coming to and from this encapsulated memory of a home he did not remember. Him in another hideout, in another country.

Now M-21 leapt up from sitting on the table too, as if it had burnt him, like a child caught redhanded doing something they shouldn't have. They'd done it to sit closer to the others on the couch, like those tight huddles school students made with their friends before class.

Tao followed their example and scrambled to get up as well, standing between the table and the couch. His face lit up with a large, toothy grin. Directly opposite, Regis and Seira got up as well, just obscuring the one seated next to them.

"Chairman, you're here," Seira greeted.

"Principal!" Regis said, eyes twinkling.

"Finally," M-21 rolled his eyes, but the smile on his face betrayed him.

"Sorry, didn't want to wake you. You were finally getting more than a few hours of sleep a night," Takeo explained, taking a step towards him. "Someone might have…tinkered…with your alarm."

"Frankenstein," came the voice on the couch, and all eyes shifted back towards it.

Slowly, Raizel rose, stepping between the household and thanking each of them with a small nod.

There was Raizel. He was wearing uniform again, a white Yeran jacket with a cravat. There were a few strands of black hair dangling between his eyes, tousled from turning to look.

Without so much as a word from Frankenstein, the entire household went into a frenzy, doing a job he was not privy to.

Tao broke the tension by going past Frankenstein and slapping him heartily on the shoulder. "Alright, we'll hit the supermarket buying what we discussed, Sir Raizel," Tao said happily.

"Yes. I will cook a big meal today. Please wait until we get back." Seira bowed slightly before gesturing for the rest of them to follow. She stopped suddenly as she remembered something. "Lunark and Lord Muzaka went out shortly ago…I am not sure if they will come back. But if they do, it will be late."

"I'll find Rael," Regis was saying as he put on his shoes. "He's out patrolling, I'll have him join us at the supermarket later."

Then household filed out of the house, eagerly shepherding one another out. "Hey, Prof?" M-21 glanced back before closing the door behind them. There was a questioning, peculiar look on face that made Frankenstein think back to what he'd said to him on the veranda. M-21 opened his mouth to say something, but then decided against it. "Nothing, _Prof,"_ M-21 smirked, shook his head vigorously, and shut the door.

Within moments, the noisy atmosphere was replaced with a groggy sort of silence. Silence he had once grown accustomed to, but was now alien.

In the middle of the room, Raizel stood there, quiet.

Why had Frankenstein feared walking out into the light? He felt as if he hadn't a moment left to spare to see Raizel, but the second the possibility was upon him, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

The curtains of the glass sliding doors were drawn wide open, and the light of day streamed through, dousing Raizel in its glow. It felt familiar to Frankenstein all of a sudden, like he'd done this before. He'd been in this place, in another room, in another time, like two different points of both him and Raizel were intersecting. Different, but the same. Frankenstein did not know why, but in this instant he was so compelled to live out a past that might have happened differently, to say what he hadn't the chance to before. Like a moment already missed and regretted for being missed, bought to life. Frankenstein took a step forward, looked Raizel in his eyes, and told him,

"Stay."

* * *

A breeze outside rattled the house, roaring past them. Frankenstein waited, not sure where they were headed. For so long in his head, it had never gone past this point.

And then, Raizel answered.

"I will stay," Raizel murmured. His eyes began to glow an incandescent red, red as deep as vermillion. "For you, I will to stay. To you, I will always return."

Frankenstein's lips trembled apart.

"Frankenstein," Raizel said, his name in his mouth like a hymn, something holy to be cherished. "Frankenstein, when I was in the coffin in the depths, when I was cast into a deep sleep all those years ago, I heard you."

"You…" Frankenstein started, blinking. "You heard me?" He pondered a moment, wondering what his master meant. "What did I say?"

Raizel's lips turned up. "I will never forget the sound of your voice. Frankenstein, you should never fear about forgetting mine."

Frankenstein startled a little, hobbling backwards with dangerously weak knees.

"You told me to come back to you," Raizel said, "From the very moment I was struck down, and every moment thereon spent away from you, I did everything in my power to ensure my return." Raizel looked away for a few seconds, a small smiling coming onto his lips.

He looked up, showing a tentative, but honest expression. He did so knowing Frankenstein could see things he could not, showing him every emotion that touched upon his face. "I did not tell you why I left because it would cause you pain. Regret is but an extravagant emotion, _I know this well,_ that one even as powerful as I cannot change the past, but I wish, Frankenstein — I wish I could have admitted I came back to see you."

Raizel went forward, closing the distance with long, sure strides until he was right before Frankenstein, and Frankenstein gasped beneath his breath as Raizel reached out without fear — but this was real. Not a dream or a delusion or a fantasy. Raizel reached out, brushing a few strands of Frankenstein's fringe out of his face, then sifting his fingers deeply through his hair. Frankenstein's breath hitched when that hand went further, when it slid down to his neck, his shoulder, his arm. When he pulled away, Frankenstein found himself leaning forward slightly, wanting to follow the movement and prolong the touch. His eyes flickered up, hesitant.

Sometimes, he couldn't bear to look at the way Raizel looked at him. The way the stalwart symbol of power, of the absolute, of the noblesse looked at Frankenstein with utmost tenderness. The warm fondness and weary concern that said he knew just exactly how tired Frankenstein was, and exactly how much Frankenstein would like to let go his guard, let go of it completely and shed the weight of holding it, exactly how he'd like nothing more than to be accepted by Raizel for as long as Raizel would allow it.

And Raizel would allow it. He always would.

"Are we not the same, Frankenstein?" Raizel said quieter now, into the small space between them. "Are we not both so careless as to leave behind the other, being so ardently convinced it was the best for the one left behind?"

"Yes." Frankenstein cleared his throat, answering him. "Careless, or caring too much in the wrong way. I wonder which it is."

Raizel sighed, seeing the humour in the answer.

"I told you at the lakeside, there is no reality where you could let a friend rampage over innocents, and not put your life on the line to right it. You left because it was your duty to," Frankenstein said. After a solemn pause, heavy with weight, he spoke again. "But I left because I couldn't bear to face you," Frankenstein enunciated, a sort of flair in his voice. "And yet the moment I came to, I fought tooth and nail to be back by your side."

Frankenstein looked up, something lightning up his eyes, giving him new courage and vigour. "….I have come back to answer what my Master had commanded of me."

Raizel nodded, his gaze virulent. "Speak. Tell me anything you want and I will listen, I will hear you and I will do all it takes to understand."

Frankenstein nodded, a show a gratitude. "You asked me about the bunker beneath this house. Why I preserved it and then tampered with myself to forget about it," Frankenstein muttered.

Raizel nodded intently, concentration falling over his face. "Yes."

Frankenstein swallowed, shooting a crooked smile. "You know the reason I lost control…the reason I went berserk in Lukedonia all those years ago, was because of this."

Frankenstein's insides squirmed. After all that tangled struggle between hot fingers, he undid the bow around his neck easily. Slowly, he parted his collar, showing his chest.

Raizel's eyes dropped a little, settling on the glint of a necklace. Frankenstein thumbed the charm, showing the necklace to him.

"It was once very important to Tesamu," Raizel started. "So it is important to you, too."

"Yes," Frankenstein said. "I lost my mind and you saved me. Do you remember how you spared my life?" Frankenstein asked nervously, enclosing the charm in a fist. _Did he remember how he had spent his precious life for him? How he had chipped away at himself for the sake of someone like Frankenstein?_

"Your life was never mine to take," Raizel said, with a slight crease in his brow. "But it was everything for me to protect." _How could Raizel not remember this in painstaking detail? How could he not treasure it — him?_

Raizel's brow creased. "How can I not remember?"

Frankenstein paused a moment, deep in thought. "After you disappeared and I searched all I could, the only thing left to do was to wait. I didn't need to be constantly on the move anymore. My notoriety had lapsed from time. But I couldn't go back to Lukedonia and be there and live in that house alone." Frankenstein chuckled slightly. "Even if I did want to go back to the place I was born — it didn't exist anymore. I no longer had a place to stay."

Frankenstein pursed his lips. "So I came back to the only home that felt like a home to me, other than the one you generously allowed me."

Raizel's eyes saddened, but he smiled and nodded. "The place you and Tesamu once shared."

"Yes." Frankenstein picked his shoulders up and dropped them again. "It was purely practical at first," he admitted, "A place to be get my bearings and live among humans again." Frankenstein smiled sadly, and Raizel listened on. "But I couldn't bear the sight of it. You…I thought Tesamu was dead."

Raizel nodded, slow and intent, eyes boring into him with focus and concern that could cut. Frankenstein didn't look away. He stepped forward, swallowing what pride he had left, wanting none of it, needing none of it in front of Raizel. "…I've dreamed of Tesamu for a thousand years. But I could never have dreamed of _this."_ Frankenstein seemed to buckle and slouch for a moment, and Raizel let him rest.

When he began again, Frankenstein's voice began to wane and shake. "I was supposed to care for him and give him something better. I was supposed to…And yet, in Lukedonia, when I found out he was gone — it had already been _so long_ in human terms. When I received his necklace, it had been ten years since I left him. He was already gone for an entire decade when I had the audacity to imagine he'd made something of himself!"

A hand flitted to cover his mouth, muffling Frankenstein for a moment before he threw it back down in a hurry. "The burning that happened beneath this house was when I fled from those after me. It was the very last time I saw Tesamu. What does it say to you, that I tried to lay waste to the memory of this place?" he spoke, "That I wanted to remember Tesamu, but I didn't have the courage to remember where exactly I was."

"Because it _hurts,"_ Raizel professed, and his voice was not the shy drawl for fear of crossing the chasm of a room and take up space, he spoke with words said to be heard. "If it hurts, _it hurts._ You may acknowledge that, Frankenstein. That says that you are so compassionate, and caring, and feeling, and sentimentality is not to be ashamed of. Upon your hard visage, you have a soft heart," Raizel said. "A kind heart. It is not a fallibility to want not to be hurt."

Frankenstein chuckled humourlessly. "I could have just gotten rid the place when I got here. It would have averted this all."

"No," Raizel said, shaking his head, "You couldn't destroy the last reminder of someone you _loved."_

Frankenstein seemed to react at that word, going still for a fraction of a second. His fingers took to curling into a fist, relaxing and clenching at his side. "Regardless, it is so that I locked away the memories beneath my house. I wilfully chose to forget. It was easier, that way."

Another silence passed.

Raizel who was too good at holding the silence, reached out again to surely to break it, and said, "Frankenstein."

Frankenstein closed his eyes, savouring his name in master's mouth a second time.

"I wanted to console you," Raizel said, "But did not know how. Why did you believe you must withhold this from me?"

Frankenstein huffed. He dipped his head, gripped in shame and confusion. "I didn't want you to know because I did not wish to face it myself. All I knew was that it would have worried you beyond measure. The children would have been affected too. It wasn't worth your distress," he remarked. "I could—"

Raizel's aura stiffened, a hint of something sharp in the air. Frankenstein looked up hurriedly. He'd offended him, somehow, looking up to see a cross look on Raizel's face. Raizel glared disapprovingly, his glowing, inflamed.

"Mas…"

"What I think you are worth is not for you to decide," Raizel stated, raising his head.

Frankenstein took a step back, alarmed at the suddenness of it. "I…"

"I know that it is partly my fault, Frankenstein." Raizel gulped, crumbling a little as Frankenstein seemed to do as well. "It was something out of both of our hands. Not fate, but duty. I had to leave you and that changed _everything,"_ he said, voice rasping and creaking along.

"How could I expect to awaken and see the same Frankenstein, when no time had passed for me at all, and so much time had passed for you," Raizel said slowly. "For me, you were there when I left, and you were there when I awoke. For you, who had braved through through the ages, and experience all of it pass as a human." His eyes flickered up. "I had never lost you, not for a moment."

Raizel swallowed and fought back his want for silence. It was so hard for him to know what to say in such a short time, it was so hard for him to speak unbrokenly, but it was as if Raizel was saying what he wanted to say now rather than what he ought to. Everything — it was everything that came pouring out of him, none of it restrained, none of it filtered down to mere necessity.

"You used to confide in me," Raizel said, "In many ways, you still did — you could confide in me with that book. But that was before you knew Tesamu was involved in this. He bought out your grievances against me…the ones you so carefully kept suppressed, ever since I woke."

Raizel remembered the pleasant evening spent with Frankenstein in this very living room. He remembered how every night before the quiet war with the Union, Frankenstein abandoned his important files and important papers in his carefully laid out lab, in his carefully sectioned schedule, to do nothing. Doing nothing but smiling for Raizel, for mixing his tea and sugar and indulging him.

He remembered the weight of the porcelain teacup, how his muscles and physical form faltered, failed him in a short, stark instant. He did not remember the weight of its pieces, for Frankenstein was the one who knelt to pick them up. He always did. He always did. Raizel always let him.

"You acted like you never minded," Raizel spoke. "You were happy to be reunited, as was I — but you pretended not to be fazed at all by such a long passage of time. You do it all for me."

"I did all those dastard things because I'm a selfish man."

Raizel flinched, brow creasing in confusion. Frankenstein stated it quickly and coldly, like a square, hard fact.

Frankenstein clenched his teeth, his lips thinning it into a tight line. "I care about you so completely and ineffably, but it feels as if — above everything else in this world I care so much about what you think of me. How you look at me." He looked up, meeting his gaze strongly, brashly for the first time. "I…" He faltered. Raizel looked at him, melancholic.

"I can't bring myself to admit how weak I am to you," Frankenstein said. "I don't want to be weak. I cannot afford to be vulnerable — I cannot let you see me like that," Frankenstein whispered. "Not in front of you." He paused, collecting himself a little. "Like that time after Tesamu had beaten me by provoking my anger and I undid the seal you placed. And after…when I _blamed_ you for having to do your duty and disappearing," he said, wincing, his blank face twisting in pain. "It kills me for you to see me so low, and pathetic. _I can't bear it."_

Raizel stood there, struck by those words as he watched Frankenstein, as low and vulnerable as ever.

"...I don't know if it's for you or me anymore," Frankenstein said, his voice gradually raising. "If it's just keeping up appearances, is that not my fault? It's selfishness, isn't it? It's arrogance — it's everything they ever said about me that's right — that's true! _Hah_ — I would rather run than let you see me like that."

He gasped, catching his breath from his raised voice. "You would offer me help, you would offer me your power, but I would never dare ask for it. The children, they come in their droves to offer me help and I'll never take it…" Frankenstein admitted. Then his face blanked again, blank and absent as ever. "Master…I lied to you, and I sullied you."

Raizel pursed his lips, trying to say the right words.

"Had I the courage to confide in you…" Frankenstein murmured. "But I did not _."_

Raizel shook his head quickly, rebutting it immediately. "I know you, Frankenstein," he said, and Frankenstein froze. "And you are wrong," he said, sighing. "How you can equate selfishness to what you do?" Raizel touched a warm hand to the top of his head, beckoning him to rise. Breathing out and biting his lip for a moment, Raizel lingered a moment before breaking the silence.

Frankenstein looked on, breath hitching in his throat at Raizel's words. Frankenstein thought, that Raizel's face had never been this open. It was like he'd forgotten to take the least space as possible in the room, was concentrating so much on what to say that he forgot there were other ways to express things, that other people could see him and read him. It was the first time he could not use a link to show Frankenstein exactly as he felt. But instead, everything was laid bare on his face.

"I know that you do not wish to burden me, that you do not want to weigh down my conscience with your worries and problems, that you want for me to live freely," Raizel said, his voice raising ever so slightly as he went on. "You welcomed me into your new world, gave me this life I did not deserve, you built me a school I did not ask for, and beckoned me to live in it fulfilling my every desire."

Raizel smiled.

"But that is not what I want," he said, his eyes beginning to strain under concern, the sincerity of his voice making Frankenstein want to look away — but he couldn't, he was transfixed, spellbound. "I cannot take what you have given, and then crush your grievances beneath my foot. I cannot be with you and turn a blind eye to your sadness, I will not live at your expense, because, Frankenstein, I will never forsake you."

It felt like they were on the verge of something toppling over the barriers they'd put up around themselves for safety, the brittle politeness that threatened to alienate them both. It felt like Raizel at the sill, drawn away from the things outside by the pull of the brightest soul, and Frankenstein, at the doorway, peering on on the lonesome spectator, and both thinking, _Who are they?_

"You asked me through your tears why I did not _use_ you when I fought Muzaka," Raizel continued. "You wanted to fight in my name. If that's so, then why do you not allow yourself that same notion? Why do you not abide by the same principle you said I deprived you of?"

Frankenstein opened his mouth, dumbfounded.

"Our contract was benign, but I had a duty to you just as I had a duty to fight back then." Raizel looked him stark in his eye, reaching out to him. "Just as I had a duty to return to you," he said gently, and Frankenstein shuddered. "…I know it's not about give and take, it never was nor will be — but you were _not_ my fodder." Raizel took another step forward and Frankenstein, swallowing hard, remained rooted to the spot.

"I was yours, just as much as you were mine." Raizel blinked, assessing that statement. "I was promised to you. I still am," he whispered. "Frankenstein what do I think of you…I think you are momentous. You are so kind, Frankenstein, you are nothing but a good man who tries so hard and gives so much, you forget that you are allowed your weakness."

"Master…" Frankenstein broke off, still reeling from Raizel's words.

Raizel stopped, hands unfurling at his side. "Belittling yourself is an insult, Frankenstein. For I am the Noblesse. The core of my power is the right to judgement." Raizel's gaze softened. "In my eyes, you are the most worthy of all I have laid eyes upon, in all of my existence," he said, low and dignified, a judge giving his verdict. "You are flawed, like us all. Much like myself. But you are wonderful."

 _Because there was nothing in the world for the time he'd been in it that had come remotely close to Frankenstein, no one in living memory, no one at all, that could compare to that will. A will to protect, to care, to go on after making every hard choice he'd ever had to make._

Frankenstein swallowed, feeling the backs of his eyes beginning to burn, remembering to let go of the fists his hands had curled into. " _Master…_ " he said hoarsely, throat tense and dry.

Raizel's aura buzzed. "You deny yourself too much. You deny yourself me. Why is that?" Raizel went on, disregarding Frankenstein's weak legs, and fast-weakening heart, practically visible to the eye, "Even if there was no contract, no so-called obligation — I _want_ this. With everything I have, I want you to understand this. That not once in my life since I've met you, have I ever thought of you as secondary to any of my desires."

Frankenstein just stared, face reddened and unsure and too scared to blink. Raizel stepped forward once more, placing a firm hand on Frankenstein's shoulder, familiar, weighty, and encompassed with all the care in the world.

"I beg you, Frankenstein. Let me serve you as well."

He could fall to his demise this very moment, surrender to the whirlpool inside of him and let himself be dragged away, overwhelmed by the current of feelings, but he stifled himself to stay upright. Then choosing what to say next felt like walking a tight rope, two hundred and eighty five metres above ground, head in the clouds and heavy weight in his hands. His palms might have been damp and his breathing abnormal, his bowtie might've been flapping around his face as he looked to the other side — too far away, too daunting and probably unforgiving all the same. The risk was more than tremendous, it was chasmic, beyond words, and yet he balanced on the tight rope like a set of scales, able to wobble over both sides. It was too easy to fall. It was a terrible way to fall.

Raizel spoke, quelling the tempest rolling in his head.

"Let me remake our bond," Raizel stepped in closer, so close, too close, "let me bind us together. Let me take your soul in mine once more." Raizel's lips quivered, his eyes crystalline. "Let us never be parted again."

Frankensteins mouth parted, his eyes widening. Those words, _oh,_ those words inflamed him, they salvaged him, they could destroy him if he was less disciplined a man before Raizel, they set him on fire on the inside in a way he'd never felt with Dark Spear.

He remembered the fire in the underground room blazing around him, remembered inhaling smoke as Raizel tried to console him. He remembered the cold, conjured rain falling across his skin, feeling alive in it, feeling like burning, feeling tainted as he cast Raizel aside. He remembered his soul, perfect and full and so complete, remembered pain on a whole other spectrum as opposed to what he'd inflicted on and earned himself throughout his entire existence when it was ripped apart.

But he knew of the fullness and completeness and bliss of a bonded soul too well. To be with Raizel forever.

Raizel smiled at him, glowing. "We have entered into a contract of the soul. Do you consent?"

Frankenstein closed his eyes. He closed his eyes, every part of him scrambling on this next moment, on this choice.

"…No, Master."

* * *

 **Notes.**

I will update as soon as I can.

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general zargon - If Dark Spear got transferred to Tesamu, then naturally he should feel the side effects that Franken feels. Except for him, he's had no practice resisting them. Thanks general zargon!

Deshy - "They understand each other better that anyone else," that's them! That's Franken and Rai.

Drop dead Fred - "There are so many parts in this story where I had to just stop reading and let myself feel," then me writing this fic was worth it. Thanks sooo much for your review, it seriously makes writing this worthwhile. I'm also super sorry about the end of this chapter hahahahahaha - but I swear it's not as apocalyptic as it looks!

Lord of the Gauntlets - not going to lie, I have to tell you at least once that your username is Too Cool. 'Love pentagram' really destroyed me hahahahahahahahha! Thanks for the all caps in your review so I get exactly how you feel!

Laryna6 - "Dark Spear saying 'wake up then' and then showing Tesamu a memory of waking up to make him think he was free for a second." Dark spear really is that savage. Thanks for commenting on all the parts you liked! (Spent so much time making a list of 'Raizel's top 10 quotes.' That should be a youtube video or something. Some of the stuff that Rai says is just so amazing. From "Regrets are extravagant" to "The ramen has gotten bigger!"

Kyo07 - I wrote this fic to be read and I'm glad to share it with you through the power of google translate. Thank you so much! The characters of noblesse are just amazing, though it does fall into the trap of stagnating and not letting characters develop after a certain point. Which is a real shame, because there's so many places you could these characters. Though it does get quite melodramatic in this fic, I try to keep it as in-character as possible. Sorry about the fast pace of the flashbacks, but I chose to keep it quick because it's a few of the most memorable parts of Noblesse (and this fic, haha) that readers would be familiar with. Like the part where Franken learns about Rai's power shortening his life that you instantly connected to! Thanks Kyo07.

i - You said, "This chapter made me realise that. Its about the relationship a human made with a Noble, so unique and peculiar for both sides, that stirred up the fascination and fear," and I think you are so right. People are afraid of things they don't understand. What's really startling, and you talk about it too, is how similar Franken and Rai are at their core. It's two very similar people who were both very closed off and found they could be their true selves with each other. It took Franken nearly ten years just to get to the stage where he trusted Rai, but it must have been different for Rai, who's job is to judge souls. On face value, Franken with the immense pride and fury and villainy was so vastly different from Rai's soft-spokenness and reservedness. The noble clan leaders (who were not Gejutel and Ragar) were scandalised that Franken was living with Rai. They were baffled as to why Rai hadn't sentenced him to death! But when they actually interacted Franken just talked softly and made tea, while Rai enjoyed his company. They just ground each other, don't they? Not just the noblesse and the raging human antihero, but Raizel and Frankenstein. Tesamu...for lack of anything better, he's like that guy that's all, 'this is for your own good!' But. It is not. It is not for your own good. Now that Tesamu has seen Dark Spear's memories, maybe he can get it into his thick head. Thank you for your reviews i, they're something special that I look forward to.

Link - Franken's wild hair in that last fight, am I right?! "that part where Frankenstein is almost totally consumed by Dark Spear the other day, and I was just hit with how freaking CREEPY Dark Spear is." OHH. Dark Spear in this fic has been written as a sympathetic character, but that's all in Franken's pov. There's one panel in noblesse (can't find the chapter number) that I pretty much based Dark Spear's characterisation on, and its that creepy panel where Franken looks down and it's like he's on top of a huge mountain of Dark Spear's souls. DS is pulling him down into them. It's the first time we hear "I Curse You" (note the 'I') and Dark Spear, visually, is a mass of hands just grabbing at Franken. Franken is also nude, and everything is all around disturbing. Ding, ding, ding, Dark Spear is never shown to speak or look like this again and it sucks. (I lowkey can't believe they establish that DS speaks to Franken like every two chapters but never follow this up! Let DS talk, what do they say to him?!) And thanks for commenting on the "Franken" and "Monster" switch! Long rants are Love, never apologise for them.


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